1. Developments in electronic publishing
Tony Delamothe
web editor
bmj.com
May
now 28 million
for information providers - a no-brainer

2. What’s so great about the web ? (I)
Speed
Spread
Space (infinite)
Storage
Searchability
Savings
Increasing diverhgence between the paper and electronic products

3. Readership: > doubled in 4 years
paper ( ) electronic ( )
Overlap
16 000

4. What’s so great about the web ? (2)
Links
Interactivity
Multimedia
Easy transactions
Increasing diverhgence between the paper and electronic products

5. What’s so great about paper ?
Legibility
Portability
Durability
Cost
Cheap, light, lasts for millennia without batteries

6. “Despite the availability of the electronic journal, I want to keep receiving the paper journal” (BMA members, 2001)

7. How this plays out: bmj.com
Rapid responses
ELPS (electronic long; paper short)
Publishing asap
Interactivity
Online submission and peer review

8. The common trajectory electronic paper
Common trajectory - subset, set, superset
How do you get to the superset?
Two ways - seduced by the technology - to Thoreau

9. How the earth is moving beneath paper journals
Article content and appearance
Article publication
Uncoupling quality control and distribution
How contingent paper journals
since part of the landscape - like canals and horse drawn carriages -round for ever

10. Article content and appearance
Richer
Links (including forward citation)
Pre-and post publication peer review
Multimedia
WHY?

11. Article publication Ahead of print Oblivious to print
(Underlying shift: from issue level to article level publication)
= lower barriers to entry

12. The way we were…. Editorial office
Uncoupling quality control from distribution
The way we were….
Editorial office
manuscripts
journal
QUALITY CONTROL
DISTRIBUTION

13. The way we will become Editorial office Server manuscripts
Peer reviewed article
manuscripts
QUALITY CONTROL
DISTRIBUTION

14. “It’s easy to say what would be the ideal online resource for scholars and scientists: all papers in all fields, systematically interconnected, effortlessly accessible and rationally navigable, from any researcher’s desk, worldwide for free.”
- Steve Harnard

15. “free access to the scientific literature would be a phenomenal advance in scientific publishing - the greatest in our lifetime”
-Nick Cozzarelli

16. A few questions
What do you think about the new publishing initiatives?
What’s going to happen to publishers?
What’s going to happen to libraries?

17. The navigator function -addressing the information paradox?
Increasing synthesis
Primary research articles