Interesting article at Newsforge on the Gift Economy. Like most other new articles on gift cultures, it cites the scientific community as an example. While this is true in the “perfect world” sense, I always wonder how much of the “exchange economy” has crept into the way science is done.

The first person I heard talking about gift cultures within the library community was Eric Morgan. He was probably influenced by Eric Raymond‘s musings. While I’m thinking of it, there is more on the gift economy at Wikipedia and in First Monday, a peer-reviewed Internet journal… and, of course, on Google.