---- Lonnie Aarssen <[email protected]> wrote: > I wonder if Don Strong would explain to us why > Ecology is still publishing on paper? No > ecologist that I know reads paper journals > anymore, and hasn't for years.
I read paper journals, and I have for years. i hope to be able to continue to do so. And libraries > everywhere are cancelling their paper > subscriptions and supporting only electronic > journal subscriptions. Libraries are doing everything they can to corral costs, mainly because of the political climate that is withdrawing funding from education and research support. The fact that they are cancelling paper journals has nothing to do with the desirability of keeping them. When we have only digital information, tell me how that information will be guaranteed into the future? One of the functions of libraries is curation of the knowledge we have accumulated. In the 60 year lifetime of digital information storage and retrieval the media of choice have changed more times than I care to try to count, from paper punched tapes and cards, to tape, and so on, with multiple ways of reading those media. Most of them can no longer be read. >In the news this week we > also learned that Encyclopedia Britannica has > decided to publish its last print edition this > year, with only online editions available in the future. Encyclopedia Britannica is not a journal. > > Is it not time for Ecology to do the same? No. >The > advantages seem obvious. If Ecology "has a > limited number of pages that the ESA can afford > to publish", then why not simply break free from > this limitation by publishing electronically > only? The ecological community could then > benefit from a greater number of high quality Ecology articles. and the disadvantages are also obvious. BTW, I have paper journals on my bookshelves that I have cherished for years. I hope to keep them until I pass them on to a library that is more understanding of its curatorial role than those you admire so. mcneely
