In article <95095.172146FORSDYKE at QUCDN.QueensU.CA>, <FORSDYKE at QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
> As paper prices rocket, journal editors seem to be asking authors more
>frequently to trim the lengths of their papers. Yet out there on the net there
>is an abundance of space. Anyone can "publish" whatever they want on the
>internet. Bionet bulletin boards are archived in at least two locations. So
>what is delaying things?
>>The main stumbling blocks are:
>> (1). No easy way of citing a posting.
>> (2). Even if there were an easy way of citing a posting, would Editors in
> the paper literature allow such citations in their journals.
I think that someone should just give it a shot and see the reaction of the
editors. IMO unless there is *original* copyrighted research published on the
net it will be difficult to cite. So first there is a need for "net journals".
> (3). Possible opposition from the paper publishers, who see their profits
> declining.
>
This goes into the question of supply and demand. I can think of many reasons
to choose electronic over paper journals and in the future, I hope, that
traditional paper journal publishers would switch (or at least offer and
alternative) to electronic publishing. There is potential for retaining (or
even increasing do to less copy sharing and personal subscriptions that go to
libraries) if the medium used for such publishing is a password-only accessible
web page with monthly rotating passwords going to subscribers.
>Problem 1 may be solved by using the time parameters of an electronic posting
>as one would volume and page numbers.
>> Thus: Smith J (1995) Bionet.journals.note 405, 1703
>>(April 5th at 1703h)
This will be difficult because different postings arrive differently at
different news servers (for example your posting did not arrive to my server at
1703). Another possiblility would be to use the net.bio.net archive numbers
of the posts as a reference point. Of course, in moderated (i.e. peer reviewed
posting a certain "article number" can be assigned. Also the availability of
the article should be included in the citation, IMO, because a lot of
scientists are not familiar yet with the net. (So in the above example should
be an extra line suggesting available at http://net.bio.net or at
gopher://net.bio.net)
>>Recently according to The Scientist, several groups have been given $4 million
>each to study ways of literature retrieval. I hope that the groups will also
>study the electronic publication problem, and perhaps give us their opinions in
>this forum.
> Sincerely,
>Don Forsdyke, Discussion Leader,
>Bionet.journals.note
Sincerely,
Emmanuel
_______________________________________________________________________________
Emmanuel Skoufos, Ph.D. | The opinions and views
Insect Molecular Biology Group | presented here are my own
Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology | and only my own.
Box 1527 | --------------------------
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