Re: End-of-98 thoughts

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_coglit.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 21:34:40 +0100

On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Marvin Margoshes wrote:

> There are some disadvantages to online publishing. Perhaps the most
> important is the lack of means for long-term archiving...

Ah me!

> Scientists can be conservative in their habits, and very many are reluctant
> to give up the familiar printed page....
> In my view, the transition from print-dominance to
> online-dominance will take five to ten years....
> Those on this Forum who have advocated steps to force a more rapid
> transition have not, in my opinion, made a compelling case for haste.
>
> The defect with this Forum was that the most important players in scholarly
> publishing weren't well represented. I mean the authors and readers, not
> the editors, publishers, and librarians.

To test armchair pronouncements such as these against real evidence, I
can only patiently counsel yet again having a look at the way 20,000
authors a year and 65,000 readers a day are voting with their eyes and
fingers even as we speak...

http://xxx.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/todays_stats

Stevan Harnad
Received on Tue Aug 25 1998 - 19:17:43 BST

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