Langer replies: I agree with Kyle Forinash’s remark that a fundamental strength of the Internet is its potential for interactive communication among several parties. In fact, taking advantage of this strength was what I had in mind when I predicted that the American Physical Society is headed toward some powerful combination of the unrefereed e-print archives (which already include lots of online interaction) and the refereed journals. But it’s not yet clear to me how this merger will work. Our main objectives are, first, excellent research enhanced by new modes of communication and, second, a long-lasting archive of accessible, high-quality, scholarly publications. An unedited record of “a genuinely interactive—and democratic—electronic journal” may be useful to historians 20 years after publication, but it’s not likely to be the best possible research tool for the scientists of that era.
Cynthia Cudaback raises an interesting question: Does electronic publication actually waste more paper than the conventional print journals? I don’t know the answer. In my own case, I do tend to print lots of stuff. But I used to photocopy just as many papers from the print journals; and I generally copy or print only the material I really need, selected from an enormous database that remains in the environmentally benign form of electrons. I also notice that, when some of my colleagues receive old-fashioned preprints, they scan them into their computers and recycle the paper.
Cudaback’s second point is also interesting but even harder to evaluate. Is the ease of electronic communication encouraging too many of us to throw caution to the wind by prematurely posting “half-digested” research results? If so, is that a bad thing?
I’m not convinced that electronic communication has greatly changed the way we play this particular game. We are eager to show our results to others because we want feedback and credit. At the same time, we don’t like to risk the embarrassment of circulating wrong results, nor do we like to give away our best ideas before we have had a chance to develop them properly. The game is just played faster and more openly these days.
