Imagine twenty years from now as a group of science educators at a national meeting enter in friendly discussion. A one point they look back with nostalgia at the films of the late 90's . Some one mentions the remake of "Between two worlds" and all laugh. "A great genre film with dark overtones" a colleagues says. "Figured out the future better than most." Says another. "Best yet," says a third, "it used our work as a plot base!" All sigh in remembrance at the plot...
Ann Jackson, a science education prof and her significant other, Walter, are in a metaphorical ship, drifting in the fog between two worlds. On one shore is a world of print publishing while the other shore, electronic publishing. Which shore will they reach? Walter, in flash backs, relives the world of print publishing and Ann dreams of the other world... "We're drowning in unsearchable print!" Ann recalls. "But I could look on my bookshelves of green and maroon volumes!" sighs Walter. Each lives, in flash backs or flash forwards the positives and negatives of the two worlds. At the end, Walter lights two cigarettes (a cancer producing product of the time) and hands one to Ann and as the boat drifts into the fog, and with a final line of dialog from Ann, the film ends.
Looking back the science educators all think of how those positives and negatives turned out. Here is what they discussed
"Were still overwhelmed with information but that information, gathered by active electronic agents is much more what we need."
"We still have to meet deadlines but the choice is so wide that we can find several "journals' that meet our needs."
"We still have to wait for our submissions to be judged but the time is shorter as they are also sent electronically."
"We still have to read all the stuff but with hyperlinks and inclusion of actual computer program in the "articles" we'll have a increase in productivity."
Looking forward from today we don't have the benefit of hindsight so why do we need to go to all of this trouble? Why start to add electronic journals? Just the shear logistics and cost may force us to a different delivery model. At present there are over 200,000 journals published each year. Of these Harvard subscribes to about 104,000, Berkeley to about 89,000. If you wished to do a search for a journal article, imagine the time, the effort and the human capitol spent to carry out such a effort. In addition libraries are sinking under the weight and cost of such journals as more and more of a college collection budget is taken up by the cost and location of such journals.
Well why hasn't it happened before? All the problems above can be addressed by the use of electronic journals but creates problems of their own. For example, do we increase the "distance" between the haves of those with the where with all to afford technology powerful enough to do the involved smart agent work? Will there become a never ending spiral of technology improvement such that we can't keep up? None of these questions have easy answers any more than the changes brought about by books did for the distribution of knowledge. Many folk think it was the invention of movable type that caused such a revolution but it was really the rapid lowering and availability of paper that made the difference. Just as today it's not the computer that is making the difference but the availability and cost of the Internet that is making all the difference. And that has just happened.
Yet, I'm an optimist and believe that we are in the midst of a great revolution to which we all can benefit from journals such as these. Thus I keep hearing that great line from the ending of the new "Between two worlds" film in which our heroine, Ann, says to Walter upon seeing the new electronic shore... "Why wish for the moon when we have the stars"
Enjoy this first issue and let's reach for the stars.
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