<div dir="ltr">Thanx very much to Heather for drawing attention to Odlyzko's (1995) paper, which I hadn't seen before. It was most interesting to be returned to the days when all those without access to Mosaic had to do was to write a few commands to get an ftp file sent to them!<div><br></div><div>It was also interesting to read Odlyzko's discussion of the pressures on peer reviewing even then and his discussion with Stevan Harnad of various options for open access. In the first 2 sentences of his abstract Odlyzko predicts that -</div><div><br>'Scholarly publishing is on the verge of a drastic change from print journals to electronic ones. Although this change has been predicted for a long time, trends in technology and growth in the literature are making this transition inevitable. It is likely to occur in a few years, and it its likely to be sudden.'<br><br>One reason for this prediction being so spectacularly wrong at least in its timing, and an answer to Heather's question about why scholars cling to a technology that is optimal for paper and mail distribution, may be derived from Schaffner's (1994) account of the evolution of scientific journals in the mid 17th century which Odlyzko paraphrases -<br><br>'. . . owed little to technological developments, and was driven by developments in scholarly culture. Also, while scholars may be intellectually adventurous, they tend to be conservative in their work habits.' <br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Gavin</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Odlyzko, Andrew M (1995) Tragic loss or
good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals, <i>International Journal of Human-Computer
Studies</i>, volume 42, issue 1, pages 71-172.</span></p>
</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Schaffner, Ann C (1994) The future of
scientific journals: lessons from the past, <i>Information
Technology and Libraries</i>, volume</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/indexingvolumeissuelinkhandler/37730/Information+Technology+and+Libraries/01994Y12Y01$23Dec+1994$3b++Vol.+13+$284$29/13/4?accountid=13552"></a></span><span lang="EN-US">13, number 4, pages 239-40.</span></p>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">
<div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Gavin Moodie, PhD</font></div><div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Adjunct Professor in the Department of Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education</font></div><div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">OISE, University of Toronto</font></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12.7272720336914px">Adjunct professor of education at RMIT University, Australia</span><br></div>
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<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Heather Morrison <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Heather.Morrison@uottawa.ca" target="_blank">Heather.Morrison@uottawa.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">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?<br>
<br>
Odlyzko wrote in 1994 about the forthcoming demise of the scholarly journal as "tragic loss or good riddance": <a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/tragic.loss.txt" target="_blank">http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/tragic.loss.txt</a><br>
<br>
best,<br>
<br>
Heather Morrison<br>
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