Electronic publication

[Roy Smith]

	What do you think about an electronic journal?  Not a newsgroup (even
a moderated one), but a real scientific journal in which manuscripts for
full-length original research papers are submitted by email, sent for formal
review by email, subjected to the same standards as for a (shall we say) old
fashioned hard copy journal, and distributed to the subscribers
electronically.  Papers (does the term still apply?) published in such a
forum would "count" as publications, and would be cited as original research
articles.

	Much as I think it's a neat idea, I realize the world isn't ready for
this quite yet.  How to deal with figures, for example, is just one of many
technical problems.  And I won't even touch the problems of peer acceptance,
or accesibility of archives via a conventional library.  Just thought I'd
being it up as food for thought, and as a teaser to start some discussion.

	Think about it.  Do you think it's a good idea?  Do you think it
could be made to work in a year?  Two years?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?  What if
the technical problems could be solved today, say by magically putting a 10
MIPS Megapixel greyscale X terminal on everybody's desk, with universal T1 or
better connectivity?  Would you subscribe?  Would you submit manuscripts to
it?  Would your colleagues?
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy at alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"Arcane?  Did you say arcane?  It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"