[GOAL] Why are we still publishing journals anyways?

[Heather Morrison]

The discussion about traditional and predatory journals seems to be missing a key point: why are we still publishing journals anyways? The format was developed in the 1600's and was the state of the art technology for dissemination of scholarly work at the time. Today we have the World Wide Web: why do we cling to a technology that is optimal for paper and mail distribution? 

Odlyzko wrote in 1994 about the forthcoming demise of the scholarly journal as "tragic loss or good riddance": http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/tragic.loss.txt

best,

Heather Morrison