The recent letter in which David Lynch indicts the publishers of scientific journals for foisting typesetting duties upon authors raises some interesting points. Publishing and printing technology has changed rather dramatically during the last few decades of the 20th century. This ongoing Lorentzian transformation, the result of increasingly affordable and efficient computer hardware and software, has forever altered the publishing landscape and blurred the lines between the various tasks. Anyone with a computer can now perform many tasks and is expected to do so. This mindset raises several questions beyond that raised by Lynch.
Has technology enhanced the quality of available information or merely increased the volume of it? Many an article cites the nearly Moore’s law increase in the length and number of scientific articles published every year. Gone are the days when researchers can propose a revolutionary new paradigm such as plate tectonics in a mere three pages. 1 And Albert Einstein’s landmark paper on special relativity occupies a mere 31 pages. 2 So why does a multi-author consortium require 100 pages to describe an obscure velocity distribution function in an equally obscure nuclear reaction not known to occur in nature?
Does electronic publishing save money? Every piece of new technology brings with it a new set of issues to contend with, transitional difficulties, and acclimation periods for new users. Even if journals do away with hard copy, there remain the considerable expenses of managing databases, uploading files, providing proper technical support, and controlling access. The individuals responsible for these duties get paid through page charges and subscription fees. And someone’s got to pay for the electricity to keep the servers up and running. The Web is not free!
So where does the publisher fit into this scheme? Lynch proposes that publishers be flexible and accept papers in various formats. But there is no ideal format, platform, or software. We still use Donald Knuth’s TeX program, now 30 years old, to handle much of the math typesetting for journals. Most graphics image files are of no use to a publisher; they cannot be edited. Yes, PDF (portable document format) files would be better, but even the simple task of rebreaking a poorly typeset equation proves elusive. This leaves us with the source files, which need to be carefully managed and reformatted.
As one who has edited more than 100 books and thousands of journal articles, I have yet to see a manuscript that did not require a certain amount of editorial intervention—sometimes major intervention—to bring it up to the scholarly standards of any reputable publisher. Journals can publish several hundred articles a year. Keeping track of these articles, along with the various referee reports and revisions, is a significant data management role of the publisher.
In the course of my duties as editor I have done rewriting, reformatting, typesetting, page layout, book design, and other non-editing tasks, many of which have been facilitated by technology. Unfortunately, we cannot bring back the good old days when we each had only one role to fill. Whether one is an author, an editor, a publisher, or a printer, the evolutionary forces at work require us to become increasingly proficient at multitasking. Benjamin Franklin, the grandmaster of multitasking, would feel right at home.
