Re: An Electronic Journal?

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>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 13:34:10 +0100
>From: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (N. MacLeod)

>I don't see that this requirement places any real constraint on electronic
>publishing.

It _doesn't_ put any different constraint than the ones on traditional
publishing. That's the point!

Granted, with access to the Internet anyone can shove anything
>out there for anyone to read.

That's the concern. It's much easier, too, than traditional methods.

>But the same token, however, the electronic
>format, by itself, imposed no requirement that the peer review process be
>necessarily circumvented.

Exactly the point, again! Peer review is independent of the dissemination
technology, but there seems to be precious little regard given to peer
review in the various discussions I seen (going on in other lists).

>>Another tenet is that every published paper is a permanent member of
>>the library of all scientific literature."

>This just sounds too elitist to me.  What exactly is "the library of all
>scientific literature?"

Well, in the context of our discussion over electronic publishing/
dissemination, it should be as recognizable as traditional scientific
literature. If we don't recognize the traditional literature, I suppose
we're in bigger trouble than I imagined.

>  I understand the need for a permanent archive.

Big need. Is it well resolved within the electronic media? The informatics
technologists say not; the non-technologists say yes.... Wanna place bets?

>I'm just not too comfortable with the idea of vesting the decision as to
>what does and does not constitute such an archive with any one individual
>group.

You have to vest that decision. Some group, however large, small,
diverse, or cohesive, has always made the decision. Some groups have
been as small as one individual, some large and private, some professional,
some commercial. You can't avoid it. (If you mean, literally ONE group,
then forget what I said. No one suggested that ONE group should define
"archive". On the other hand, "standards" and standards organizations
have done us well in many way.)

>  A group of people just got together
>and did it.

No rules, no protocols, no traditions followed, no ....? 

>these nominal problems will take care of themselves.  If they are not
>successful no one will have to worry about any of this.

Nominal (modest?) problems? There are a lot of people trying to
identify, address and resolve these modest problems. They don't think
they've succeeded yet.

Anyway, the point of my notice about the ACM issue on Electronic
Publication was simply to point people to a source of recent discussion
by a group of information technologists and scientists about publishing
in the electronic medium, where some of these issues are raised and
discussed.
Peter