Electronic journals: are they a paradigm shift?

Abstract

Ejournals are becoming an accepted and necessary means of meeting the demands for the dissemination of knowledge. This introductory article discusses the recent "explosion" of ejournals and provides an explanation of what is meant by an "ejournal." Ejournals are explored within the traditional context of scholarship and a discussion of the "serials crisis" that promoted the inception of ejournals is presented. After laying the groundwork for discussing scholarship in this new age of dissemination of scholarly information, the article discusses whether this digital form of publication can be called a "paradigm shift" in Kuhn's (1970) traditional sense of the word.