On 4 November 2011 09:02, David Mattichak
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
...I posted the article simply because the e-book offers so many new opportunities for anyone that publishes books or articles and I thought that this group might be useful or interesting to the scholars on this site as it often discusses new technologies and services.
I love real hardcopy books too Margaret and I don't think that they are going away, but not everything merits an expensive print run.
DGM
David, I'm in complete agreement with you about expensive print runs. I tried several years ago to convince the organisers of a large conference, where publishing every paper presented is part of the deal, that putting the papers on CD would be much better, and easier, than trying to arrange publication of a series of 12-15 volumes every four years. (They didn't agree; their publishing programme is now about 10 years in arrears.) The huge advantage of electronic publishing is print-on-demand for those who want physical books, and I think this should be the route for libraries and for conferences where the whole argument for publishing books appears to be that some of the presenters like to be able to show off a hard copy when they get back to their home institutions. My point, and I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear, was only to mention that purely electronic archiving (not publishing) is very difficult. Thank you for posting the article. The issue needs to be continually debated.
Sincerely,
Margaret