Ann Okerson and James O'Donnell (eds) SCHOLARLY JOURNALS

AT THE CROSSROADS: A Subversive Proposal for Electronic

Publishing, An Internet Discussion about Scientific and Scholarly

Journals and Their Future, Washington DC: Office of Scientific &

Academic Publishing Association of Research Libraries, June 1995,

pp.242, $20.00, ISBN 0-918006-26-0



It had to happen: an email discussion so interesting, it has been

published between paper covers. Don't be put off by the long title: this

is a debate which embraces a number of important contemporary

issues, from digital publishing to intellectual democracy and the

politics of knowledge. 



The discussion was one which exploded in the summer of 1994 on the

discussion list VPIEJ-L [Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Electronic

Journals]. Steven Harnad [then at Princeton] posted a brief article

concerning the future of scholarly journals. His argument is that

scholars working in what he calls the 'esoteric' fields of narrow

specialisms (particularly the sciences) do not need to publish on paper;

they merely wish to be read by their peers. And since they don't expect

to be paid for what they make public, why shouldn't they put their

work straight onto the Net in preprint form. They can invite

comment, make whatever revisions they feel warranted, then archive

the finished article in digital form. As he puts it himself (in

characteristically succinct form):



     "What scholars...need is electronic journals that provide (1)

     rapid, expert peer-review, (2) rapid copy-editing, proofing and

     publication of accepted articles, (3) rapid, interactive, peer

     commentary, and (4) a permanent, universally accessible,

     searchable and retrievable electronic archive."



Many other advantages to this proposal were outlined during the

debate which followed. Put everything On-Line, and access is free at

the desktop twenty-four hours a day. Scholars in fields such as

mathematics are already editing their own work for publication (using

TeX) - so why should this work be done again less expertly by editors?

Fellow scientists, including one Nobel laureate, and librarians were

quick to see the good sense of these proposals.



Objections followed too, of course. His critics come up with

compromise and half-way-house solutions, mainly resting on the

'tradition' and 'authority' of the refereed and printed journal. But

Harnad sticks to his proposal that for esoteric publications where

authors simply want their work to be read, and do not expect any

payment, there is no reason why their work should pass through the

laborious, slow, and very expensive process of print publication.

Having established the 'Subversive Proposal', he defends his essentially

clear view and simple suggestions against all comers. These are

opinions which threaten those who currently control the means of

production, distribution, and exchange of intellectual property. He

takes on criticisms, subjects his own views to inspection, and sets a

tone of 'collegiate debate' which is commendable.



The editors have retained on-page some of the typographic flavour of

email discussion. There's a lot of repetition of quotes from earlier

messages - as well as some revealing date-stamping, which shows

major contributions being answered by others within two hours.

Quotations have mercifully been attributed, but for the sort of

audience this book is aimed at, this degree of 'full explanation' may not

really have been necessary. However, this is a very small quibble.

Midway through the debate there is major intervention by Bernard

Naylor from Southampton University (UK) [where Harnad transferred

a few weeks later]. Even though he wishes to support the subversive

proposal, he points to the problems it would raise for paper publishers.

It is then fascinating to see how Harnad subjects this contribution to

rigorous clear-thinking and shows it to be held back by what he calls

a "papyrocentric" view of publication. In the course of pursuing this

argument he throws up a number of important distinctions to be made

about the different forms 'publication' may take, and the implications

these have for scholarship, economics, and intellectual culture in

general.  



The other main contributor is Paul Ginsparg, who maintains an

archive of scholarly materials at Los Alamos which receives more than

20,000 "hits" per day. That is, more than twenty thousand physicists

from all over the world download articles in electronic form - a

medium which as he points out, has advantages possessed by no other:



     "there are many things that the new medium supports ...

     including the overall fluid nature (on-line annotations,

     continuously graded refereeing, automated hyperlinks to

     distributed resources including non-text-based applications) that

     simply have no analogue in print."



He also mentions - en passant - the advantages of directly digitised

text over scanned page images (a ratio of 1 to 500 in disk space

required). These exchanges explore in concrete detail the possibilities

of electronic publication which have been discussed in theory by people

such as Ted Nelson, Jay Bolter, and George Landow. Here we have the

financial and practical minutiae of editing, printing, and distributing

knowledge in electronic form - with the World Wide Web looming

larger as each page is turned. 



Discussion of costs becomes very detailed on varying practices in

different disciplines - yet none of the contributors take into account

the hidden subsidies of people doing editorial work in time which is

paid for or made available by their universities - though Bernard

Naylor gets near to this point when he queries "the propriety of

academic institutions using public money ... in order to drive a viable

industry ... to the wall". [That is, he wonders about scholars

exchanging information freely instead of passing it through the hands

of those poor publishers.]



This academic blind-spot appears elsewhere. Harnad's one dubious

assumption seems to be that 'Scholars do not profit from their work'. 

This might be true superficially - but of course as a result of

publishing they are able to secure promotion. The progression from

lecturer, to senior lecturer, to Reader, and to Professor involves a not-

inconsiderable salary increase from 12,000 to 35,000 [absolute

minimum] - and let's not forget that the writing of these articles and

books is often done [largely] in time which is payed for at taxpayers'

expense. Which other occupations have paid sabbatical terms and

periods of study-leave up to a year long? 



On a peripheral note, it is interesting that these experienced and fairly

high-level scholars from fields as diverse as mathematics, psychology,

and particle physics, all manage to communicate with each other in a

manner which is clear, direct, and sometimes quite elegant. None of

them resort to the silly show-off jargon of the academically modish and

the fashion victims of 'Cultural Theory'. They don't even push forward

their own subject specialisms, but concentrate on the issue in question

- electronic communication between peers.



The more books one reads on electronic publication, Hypertext, and

digital technology, the more one realises how convenient, comfortable,

portable, and aesthetically pleasing the printed book remains -

produced by what Nicholas Negroponte describes as "squeezing ink

onto dead trees". But this does not invalidate Harnad's proposal: if a

text is urgent, hot, and written for a minority - we'll read it on-screen,

add comments, and send it back within the hour, rather than wait for

the Dinosaur Publishing methods (and timescale) of 'getting it onto

paper'. The editors make the point that there is no sharp 'answer' or

'conclusion' to these issues. [In fact this debate is still raging currently

in the Hypertext-Journal discussion group].



This is a book for specialists, but it encompasses issues which are part

of the profound effect of the forces of digitisation and the Internet.

The vested interests of commercial publishers and academic

institutions may take some time to shift, but their fault lines are

remorselessly exposed here. Harnad's vision and his debate with

contemporaries gives us a view of a world which is breaking apart, in

the very process of being overtaken by the forces of New Technology.

Roy Johnson

July 95

-- 

  Dr Roy Johnson |   Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk

  PO Box 100     |   Tel +44 0161 432 5811

  Manchester 20  |   Fax +44 0161 443 2766