Re: Web journal

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As Norm McLeod most recently pointed out the discussion seems to have
confused the random posting of technical papers "personal communications"
on the web with postings in a peer reviewed web journal.  Thus all of the
discussion on copyright infringements etc. is not really germane to the
issue of a web journal.

I think that Stefen Bengtson is overreacting to the potential threat of the
inevitable appearance of one peer reviewed paleontological web journal to
all printed paleontological journals.  Lots of journals have appeared in
the last few years without destroying all journals that came before them.
In addition there are still lots of paleontologists throughout the world
who are not online. These people will still require printed journals for
many years to come.  Indeed lots of people online, including myself, like
to hold journals in their hands to look at them as well.

The biggest threat to the printed journals is price. As I outlined in my
posting the other day it takes virtually no money to prepare a manuscript
for posting to the web. Whitey Hagadorn noted, in an off-net posting to me,
that factors such as advertising, marketing, committee meetings,
society-sponsored lunches, paper costs, mailing costs, etc. will be non
existent in such a journal.  However,he also advised me that the time input
of the eds, asst. eds., and lay-out people still has to be factored in.
However, if these people are willing to put time into an electronic journal
on a volunteer basis, as occurs at many printed journals the web paleo
journal can, as Norm suggests, be free.

Tim Patterson

__________________________________________________________________________
Dr. R. Timothy Patterson               Telephone: 613-520-2600 ex 4425
Associate Professor                          FAX: 613-520-4490
Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center         e-mail: tpatters@ccs.carleton.ca
and Department of Earth Sciences             WWW: http://superior.
Carleton University                                  carleton.ca/~tpatters
Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6
CANADA