online articles and books
Benjamin Hermalin in “Scholarly Journal Publishing in the 21st Century”makes some excellent arguments why online articles could and should surpass print as the main medium of the scholarly journal article. Personally, most of the articles I read are online. The main problem I have with this though is I do not like to read from the computer. Starring at a computer screen reading journal articles is not exactly the best thing for your eyes. So I usually print out articles. So is there any difference between printing an article online and going to the library pulling the journal from the stack and copying the article? You are still left with a paper copy of the article, they may look a little different, but other than that they are the same. Though I will concede printing them from a computer is much faster and you can do it from anywhere so long as you have access to the library’s online catalog. My second issue is about computer use in general. Computers for me at least tend to be very distracting and terrific for procrastinating.
I enjoyed the two articles on E-books and the future of print books. I have never read an E-book so I do not have much to base my discussion on, other than some questions I had from the readings. First, I want say that E-books sound like they are going to be a great tool for researchers. David Bell though he worries about possible hyper-text searching over use in his article The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship, sees this as a great advantage for E-books. The ability to type in a term or phrase and go to various corresponding pages would be an incredible advantage for researchers. Bell also gives the excellent example of the history professor who soon left her position at the University of South Dakota, but left the school soon after due to a lack of library materials on her expertise. However, he points out that with online books and resources of today and the future anyone around the world could have access to materials. So it seems there are some great possibilities for the future of online books particularly for historians.
I do have a few concerns though. What about libraries? Clifford Lynch in , “The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World”, discusses the future of E-books and libraries; however, I got the sense he was more concerned with university and research libraries, than public libraries. So what about public libraries and high school libraries? What is their future? If the feature is “bookless” as David Bell suggests, what does that mean for these libraries? Many high school libraries lack necessary funding and are forced to work with what they have. Perhaps online books will increase the amount of books, in particular newer books in high school libraries. If libraries are able to purchase E-books cheaper than printed versions, then it would make sense that they would be able to purchase more books? The only question would then will the school be able to provide enough computers. Public town/city libraries; however, have a wide range of visitors; from young children to the elderly. So they have to meet a number of different demands. My main question though was about taking books out of the library. Clifford Lynch discusses the use of E-book appliances as answer, but even this brings up many different issues. I just do not see libraries getting away from the printed book. If that is true can they afford to have a print copy and an online copy?