scholarly publishing

[charlesg]

          The comments by David Birnbaum and Robert Beard are well
          taken, but I think that we are not yet ready for electronic
          publishing.  First, there are the technical and social
          obstacles pointed out by David.  Moreover, formats change.
          How many of you now still play 45 rpm records or can read
          materials written on a TRS-80 or even a CP/M computer?
          Especially given the special symbols needed for Slavic, and
          the elaborate use of nightmarish symbols, brackets, super-
          and subscripts, etc. by Slavic linguists, trying to reach a
          standard is very difficult.  Although Unicode, worked on by
          David, is a step in the right direction, it does not provide
          all the symbols and is not yet generally implemented, in any
          case.  How many different graphics formats are there that
          illustrations could be put into.  A printed book is one
          format that is not likely to be obsolete soon, even though
          it has some disadvantages.  Also, for the near future (at
          least ten years), books are the one way that our colleagues
          in some of the technically less advanced countries will be
          able to use materials.
          Another point is that in my experience, very few authors are
          able to to adequate camera-ready copy without considerable
          hand-holding, in spite of Slavica's very explicit
          directions.  I think the same would apply to electronic
          publishing.
          As to cost: electonic publishing is "free" only insofar as
          somebody pays the cost of the distribution electronically.
          As you know, there is now considerable discussion about
          making the users of the Internet pay their own way.
          Electronic publishing is not and probably never will be
          free, although if done adequately it probably can be
          considerably cheaper than what we do now (although have you
          ever tried curling up in bed with a good book on your
          terminal?)
          More to follow