Re: status of electronic journals

Greg Ritter (gritter@SATURN.VCU.EDU)
Tue, 25 Jun 1996 16:13:16 EDT


Steve Krause rhetoricized and composed the following:

> Now, my question is this: at what point do the economics of
academic
> publishing _force_ journals to accept and join the electronic
realm?

Huh? Stever, you're making it sound like it's a face-off between
electronic publishing and print publishing, like "There's only
room enough for ONE medium in this town, pardner."

Even if it is cheaper to produce an electronic publication, I
can't see how that would end print journals (or other forms of
print publication). Someone else mentioned some of the problems
of electronic publications already--you're stuck at the computer
if you want to read them, reading on screen is not as comfortable
as reading print, etc. etc. (The big problem, that no one has
mentioned so far, I think, is *access*. We who already have
almost constant access to the Internet forget that many of our
colleagues--not to mention students and people outside academia--
do not.)

The point? There's plenty of room for more than one medium,
pardner. :)

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