Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
looking to eliminate the costs of publishers, but they have
misunderstood the function of making available as the primary purpose
of publishers; it is not. We really do not have to worry about 'making
available' in our quest for an orderly system of digital information.
Registration - an aside
As an aside, Roosendaal and Geurts'
registration
function is 'already fully
matured' in the electronic environment, and in fact any trustworthy
third party can fulfil the function of registering intellectual priority.
Registration does, though, need to be tied to certification, and
obviously is related to version. In journals, registration is by means of
the date of submission, acceptance or publication, with the publicly
available Version of Record being fixed at that point, though in some
online journals changes can be made to the article and most journals
have processes and procedures to publish errata, corrigenda, addenda,
comments and replies.
Nonetheless, the publisher takes responsibility for the registration of a
version of the article at a fixed point. In cases of disputes, publishers
usually retain previous versions of the article, reviewer comments and
correspondence with the authors, so that complaints can be investigated
and resolved. Less formal publication media, like online repositories,
could (and already do in some fields) perform the registration function,
and here it is important that they determine, implement and manage
policies to take responsibility for that function and have mechanisms for
resolving disputes.
Awareness - discovery
The digital era has changed the way in which readers find content. It is
not so long ago that academics would visit the library regularly to
browse the latest literature. I have heard countless anecdotes from
professors who stumbled across an important paper serendipitously
while browsing a journal looking for something else, although these
may be apocryphal or their importance exaggerated. Nonetheless, there
is a general trend towards searching and away from browsing, and this
raises a
bone fide
question: does this harm scholarship?
