Issues and Experiments in Electronic Publishing and Dissemination

Abstract

In 1983 I made a speech at ALA Annual Conference. That speech, titled Electronic Access to Journals, was a publisher's perspective on future access to journals. I quoted a Library Congress staff member who had said to me that the train electronic access to journals was leaving station, and publishers had better get on board or it will leave without them. My response in 1983 was that publisher activity [in advancing electronic access] will be uneven and that [electronic access] will happen in fits and starts in a patchwork fashion over next decade or longer.(1) Well, now that decade has passed. As a planner, I feel slightly satisfied that my analysis ten years ago was reasonably accurate. Improvements in electronic access to journals and other scholarly information during past decade have been patchy at best. Some progress has been made, but not yet revolution. At same time, as an evangelist for electronic access, I feel great disappointment that we as a community--scholars, librarians, and publishers--still seem to be standing on brink breakthrough. But now I would agree with LC staffer: it is imminent and urgent. I want to examine three things related to electronic publishing and distribution: first, national context; second, six specific issues which have to be dealt with; and third, some specific media, services, and experiments. NREN, PDAs, and Ubiquitous Digital Libraries First, I want to discuss visions electronic information dissemination at national, or macro, level. I do this because these visions have become context in which we all work, and will affect technology and economics our work and perhaps even legal infrastructure. Ten years ago we were not talking an NREN or a National Information Infrastructure or a wireless palmtop computer and personal digital assistant. I doubt any reporter had written cyberspace in New York Times. National Public Radio was not doing stories on electronic journals as are now. We did not have a president or vice-president who understood power networks and who had Internet addresses in White House. Ten years ago we didn't have Internet. Now we live in an electronic field dreams. We believe that if we build it, will come, where they are every man, woman, and child in nation. In his introduction to High Performance Computing and High Speed Networking Applications Act 1993, Representative Rick Boucher said in April 1993: Our goal is for every individual in his or her home or office to be able to obtain access to any library in nation, to utilize an electronic index, retrieve a particular document, and print that out on his or her laser printer, all within a matter minutes. A formidable vision and goal. Real-time access to everything and a laser printer in every house. The 1990s equivalent a chicken in every pot. In a July 1993 meeting convened by Librarian Congress, Vice-President Gore articulated his vision, summarized as that of a young child at home accessing, in exciting, captivating, and energizing forms, an entire universe knowledge. This universe would be available in ways that corresponded with that child's natural curiosity, responding instantaneously to questions as occurred to child.(2) At same meeting, Senator Robert Kerrey Nebraska and Representative Newt Gingrich Georgia articulated their visions power network. Senator Kerrey focused on education, with ubiquitous network access to all information enriching classrooms, improving learning at home, and enhancing remote adult education. Earlier in 1993, Kerrey proposed legislation to seed establishment a central digital library in each state, which would make information available to every part state and to every citizen and community. Representative Gingrich, as a Republican, was perhaps more reluctant to advocate what could be interpreted as a growth in government. …