12.1539, Disc: Last Post/Web-based vs Paper Publications

The LINGUIST Network linguist at linguistlist.org
Tue Jun 12 18:11:14 UTC 2001


LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-1539. Tue Jun 12 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.1539, Disc: Last Post/Web-based vs Paper Publications

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	Lydia Grebenyova, EMU		Jody Huellmantel, WSU
	James Yuells, WSU		Michael Appleby, EMU
	Marie Klopfenstein, WSU		Ljuba Veselinova, Stockholm U.
	Heather Taylor-Loring, EMU	Dina Kapetangianni, EMU

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Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Sat, 9 Jun 2001 08:31:00 -0800
From:  Nancy Frishberg <nancyf at fishbird.com>
Subject:  Ethics of Web-based vs Paper Publications

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 9 Jun 2001 08:31:00 -0800
From:  Nancy Frishberg <nancyf at fishbird.com>
Subject:  Ethics of Web-based vs Paper Publications

Jumping into this discussion late (perhaps too late!) -

I'll observe that not all of the arguments here are about ethics (as
in the Subject line).  Many points have been made about pragmatic
concerns with web-based vs. paper publication.  I suspect my comments
will be more on the pragmatic side.

Much of the argument of whether it's a good idea to publish on the
web vs. in paper is mooted by the existence of imprints of scholarly
journals on the web.  Here I focus on refereed, scholarly publishing,
rather than individual publication.  Linguistics (as humanities or
social science) can choose to be slower to the game, but the fields
of biology, medicine and related technologies by some arguments
crucially depend on most recent publication both for individual
scholarly advancement and importantly for the rest of the field to
use the scientific results.

Are you aware of High Wire Press (http://highwire.stanford.edu)?
High Wire has been publishing scholarly work in the biological (and
related) disciplines online for the past 6 years; among the
participating journals are the most prestigious names in theses
disciplines.  There are some important dimensions to this publication
which are relevant to this current discussion.

  * The business model for different journals may differ - some
journals allow access to all articles to all subscribers; some
journals give access to more or different materials to subscribers
from what's available to print readers; and so on.

  * This press (in the most abstract sense of the term) exists to
distribute knowledge very freely and widely. To that end they do not
handcode the HTML, but rather produce and distribute several tens of
thousands of "pages" per week using automatic tools.  They formed in
order to compete with the for-profit presses publishing some journals
at increasingly expensive prices.

  * Keep in mind that High Wire started in the Stanford University
Library: library rates for journals have been more expensive than
individual subscriber rates for many years, and have gone up even
faster than individual rates.  Among the problems that High Wire is
trying to solve is how to use the library's acquisition best for the
whole campus's benefit.

  *  The agreement with High Wire (as I understand it) is that the
online versions of articles (plus reviews, notes, etc.) are linked,
so that whether I am a subscriber to the New England Journal of
Medicine or American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver
Physiology (substitute your favorite title), I'll be able to view all
the articles linked to any specific article (by the references,
authors, key search words, etc.).

  * They are run by both librarians and computer scientists, with a
strong feedback loop from the publishing arms of the large and small
professional societies.

  * They are experimenting with LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff
Safe) http://lockss.stanford.edu/ a distributed archiving system for
digital materials.

  * In linguistics, I expect that we'll want our data to be available
as well as our analyses, which means not only text information, but
also audio and video recordings.

For scholarly works in the digital libraries arena, interested
readers may look at the Coalition for Networked Information
(http://www.cni.org).

For more on issues of archiving a rapidly changing web, look at the
Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org especially their recent
conference (mid-March, 2001) (if that's recent!).

Adam Powell of the Freedom Forum frequently speaks about the cultural
(economic, social) differences between the US (and Western Europe) on
the one hand and Africa, South American and parts of Asia in our
(expectations about) access to computers, digital technology and
other forms of communication, emphasizing that the single
user/privately owned computer is not necessarily an indicator of how
many people are using the digital medium for communicating.
http://www.freedomforum.org/

And, under the heading of full disclosure:  I learned much of this
information as a friend and colleague of various employees of
organizations mentioned above, and as a participant in conferences
and work related to higher education and digital media (in my
previous role as Executive Director of New Media Centers).  I have
recently joined Sun Microsystems which is a sponsor of some of the
work I mention.

-
Nancy Frishberg  +1 650.556.1948  nancyf at fishbird.com

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