Print versus Electronic Journals: What the Future Holds

Many scholarly journals continue to be made available in print format only. There is growing evidence that such a policy is short-sighted.

Every journal requires a revenue stream of some kind, and/or a sponsoring institution, and/or a base of supporting donors. But a solution to the problem of liquidity needs to be found without negatively impacting the possibility of accessing the content of the journal wherever and whenever researchers might wish to.

Limiting access to a publication to subscribers and walk-in users of major research libraries is profoundly wrong-headed policy. The policy is out of touch with the way a growing number of researchers go about their task today. More and more cutting edge research depends primarily on freely available on-line resources.

The case for opening up access to scholarly publication to online users free of charge is eloquently made in these comments by a Ph.D. student posted on the marvelous Seforim blog.

Chris Heard does the field of Hebrew Bible an excellent service by listing and categorizing electronic resources in the field that have come to his attention. I would prefer, however, that he mark free-of-charge resources as such. The links he provides to for-a-fee articles available online are often dead anyway (on this page, for example). It’s a nuisance to have to click through and discover that the article in question costs $50.00 to non-subscribers.

For the reasons outlined in the post I link to above, free-of-charge resources are the ones a growing number of researchers will most likely depend on and work into their research.

Comments

[Iyov]

Major research libraries offer proxy services for their customers to access online journals from home as well. This is one of the major advantages to some sort of affiliation (no matter how peripheral) to an institution with a major research library.

Just as artists, historians, musicians, novelists, and poets are increasingly affiliated with universities; just as university presses now publish not only scholarly but also serious popular works; just as the raw product of universities (lectures, lecture notes, research papers) have become one of the most popular forms of contact online; so in the same way we can say are comprehensive electronic library have become linked to research universities and other major research institutions.

Prediction: the notion of the unaffiliated scholar -- which increasingly seems quaint and eccentric -- will soon seem oxymoronic.

[JohnFH]

It's not that hard to obtain research privileges at a major research library. If the library is part of a land-grant institution, being a taxpayer is often sufficient. If it is a private institution, the submission of a research plan, a letter of recommendation, and an interview will usually do the trick.

[Iyov]

As I understand it, most libraries have different levels access -- thus, access outside the library to subscribed databases may not be available to persons unaffiliated with the library. I heard JSTOR was very particular about this, for example, and they tend to be among the most lenient of the information providers.

[Chariots of Fire 5]

I think that it is a good idea to have electronic journals but I don’t think print should be eliminated. Ideally I believe all journals should be available in both manners, to support the past and to promote the future.