I suspect that the move to electronic books and journals is
inexorable. Having just given permission for my book to be re-issued
electronically (which was the way I sent it to the publisher) this
seems to be the way around the increasingly expensive costs of
publishing. In my professional associations we are publishing
proceedings now on CD and going back in time to convert earlier
issues to that form as the only cost effective way of keeping them
available. (It is hard to justify keeping an inventory of hundreds
of volumes when you sell only the odd one each year, when we can do
the electronic conversion and then supply copies on demand). We are
similarly looking at putting the journal on the Web - this can (once
the level of acceptance increases) actually increase information
exchange, but we are now in the throes of the transition and it is
going to be an expensive and painful few years as we go through this,
and sadly I suspect that quite a bit of stuff will fall by the
wayside. (This as he spends an hour a night archiving family
documents which will end up on DVD's given to all the family).
Dave
>I have been fortunate, I suppose, in being allowed to use university
>libraries without charge to look at specific items. Much more serious,
>in my view, than the difficulty of getting access to university
>libraries is the problem of the decline in local authority library
services, .....
>The only thing that senior librarians and councillors seem to spend
>money on now is buying IT equipment, because specific funds are
>available for it. But in a few years, if Internet access becomes as
>common as mobile phones are now, I suspect that this money will be
>largely wasted. .... If libraries don't
>spend reasonable sums on buying books, there is little point in them.
>
>Christopher J Williams, 65 Stancliffe Avenue, Marford, Wrexham LL12 8LN
>Tel: 01978 852601
--
David A. Summers
Curators' Professor of Mining Engineering
Adjunct Professor of Nuclear Engineering
Director
Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center
University of Missouri-Rolla,
Rolla, MO 65409-0810
"fools talk, wise men listen." (a variant of Prov 12:23)
phone: (573) 341 4314
FAX: (573) 341 4368
related web pages
A growing selection of Dr. Summers' papers are being put on the Web
and can be accessed through the Bibliography
http://www.umr.edu/~rockmech/faculty/biography.html
Rock Mechanics http://www.umr.edu/~rockmech/
Waterjet Lab: http://www.umr.edu/~waterjet/
UMR Stonehenge: http://www.umr.edu/~stonehen/
Personal: http://www.umr.edu/~rockmech/data/Summers.html
Mining Eng. http://www.umr.edu/~mining/
Waterjet Assoc http://www.wjta.org/
International Waterjet Society: http://www.iw.uni-hannover.de/iswjt/
Next American Waterjet conference: http://www.wjta.org/conference.htm
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