Elecronic Journals: The Grand Information Future? (original) (raw)
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In 1945, Vannevar Bush described his concept of the future of information storage and retrieval for scientists. His vision has been modified significantly as new developments in computer and telecommunications technology add capabilities beyond what he perceived as possible. The pursuit of a modern, multipurpose workstation which would enable scholars to create powerful, flexible, and personalized databases remains active. Today, a part of that vision has been translated into the concept of the "electronic journal," a somewhat ambiguous, elusive, and appealing goal to many within the publishing and library and information science communities and among the many other scholars who would use such a tool. This paper I,rovides a history of efforts to develop and institutionalize computer-based systems for scholarly communication, focusing primarily on peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Although it would be an exaggemtion to claim that these emerging systems are the cause of proliferating inter-and intra-disciplinary research activity within "invisible colleges," it is noted below how such activity is enhanced by these developments. It suggests that the changes now taking place make it possible to broaden the scope of scholarly communication and perhaps reduce the impact of mainstream journals. However, it also suggests that disciplinary structures have an interest in suppressing or channeling the development of such technology to reduce its potential to subvert disciplinary control.
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The costs of scholarly publishing have become unsustainable for both research libraries and university presses. This paper discusses how the transition to electronic journal publishing changes the ways in which these two participants in the scholarly communication process begin to analyze and attempt to control their cost structures in order to remain economically viable. Libraries and their users will be reluctant to abandon a known archival format, and capital investments in the technical infrastructure needed to deliver scholarly information electronically may be made slowly. For publishers, the need to cover first copy costs and to continue serving a market demand for print will create a significant transitional period during which both print and electronic formats must be produced and funded. The transition to fully electronic publication, although likely to reduce operational costs for libraries slightly in the short run and significantly in the long run, creates potential revenue interruptions for presses. Many publishers have proposed pricing models for electronic journals that are based on existing print subscription prices and that include multi-year guarantees of price adjustments to cover both inflation and expansion in the content offered. Libraries are caught in the dilemma posed by many publishers' current pricing structures for electronic journals: the offer of a multi-year reduction in the rate of inflation in high-value commercial journals is attractive when compared to the anticipated inflation in print journals; yet accepting that model would protect a rising share of library collection budgets for high-inflation journals which would then rapidly crowd out other scholarly publications. The short-term measures that the library and press individually might rationally employ to maintain fiscal stability may have far reaching negative implications for the economic viability of the system of scholarly communication as a whole, particularly for the university presses. (Contains 22 references.
Current Dynamics of Scholarly Publishing
Scholarly publishing is an essential vehicle for actively participating in the scientific debate and for sustaining the invisible colleges of the modern research environment, which extend far beyond the borders of individual research institutions. However, its current dynamics have deeply transformed the scientific life and conditioned in new ways the economics of academic knowledge production. They have also challenged the perceived common sense view of scientific research. Method: Analytical approach to set out a comprehensive framework on the current debate on scholarly publishing and to shed light on the peculiar organization and the working of this peculiar productive sector. Result: The way in which scientific knowledge is produced and transmitted has been dramatically affected by the series of recent major technosocietal transformations. Although the effects are many, in particular the current overlap and interplay between two distinct and somewhat opposite stances—scientific and economic—tend to blur the overall understanding of what scholarly publishing is and produces distortion on its working which in turn affect the scientific activities. The outcome is thus a series of intended and unintended effects on the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge. Conclusion: The article suggests that a substantial transformation characterizes science today that seems more like a thrusting, entrepreneurial business than a contemplative, disinterested endeavor. In this essay, we provide a general overview of the pivotal role of the scholarly publishing in fostering this change and its pros and cons connected to the idiosyncratic interplay between social norms and market stances.
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This paper provides an overview of the continuing evolution of scholarly publishing, leveraged in the last decades by the tremendous potential of Internet technology. It introduces "self-archiving", the broad term often applied to the electronic publishing of author-supplied documents on the World Wide Web without commercial publisher mediation, and examines its impact on scholarly communication along with the Open Access Movement. The intensity of self-archiving and its pivotal role in scholarly communication is put into perspective through reference to some self-archiving initiatives set in motion in several countries. Finally, the paper concludes by outlining the challenges for information managers in developing the full potential of Open Access.
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Within the scholarly communications ecosystem, scholarly publishers are a keystone species. University presses—as well as academic societies, research institutions, and other scholarly publishers—strive to fulfil our mission of ‘making public the fruits of scholarly research’ as effectively as possible within that ecosystem. While that mission has remained constant, in recent years the landscape in which we carry out this mission has altered dramatically. The expertise residing within university presses can help the scholarly enterprise prosper in both influence and impact as it moves ever more fully digital. However, the simple product-sales models of the twentieth century, devised when information was scarce and expensive, are clearly inappropriate for the twenty-first-century scholarly ecosystem. This report (a) identifies elements of the current scholarly publishing systems that are worth protecting and retaining throughout this and future periods of transition; (b) explores bus...