Electronic Dissertations Library

Exploring the development of the independent, electronic, scholarly journal, by Alison Wells

Advantages of paper journals

Brown (1997) notes that paper journals have these advantages:

• permanent
• distributed (many copies are stored in many places)
• scholars trust and understand the system
• journals have prestige built up over many years
• portable and easy to read

Disadvantages of paper journals

However she also argues that they have these disadvantages:

• the refereeing system is not perfect
• costly to purchase and store
• long time delays from submission to publication
• difficult to index and cross reference
• difficult to search
• library budgets are shrinking, so fewer journals can be bought
• increasing numbers of papers needing to be reviewed and published. Mastroddi (1997) states that "Science publishing produces some 1.5 million works per year"

References

Brown, S.A. (1997). Scholarly publishing using electronic means : a short guide. Newcastle : University of Northumbria at Newcastle.

Mastroddi, F. (1997) Electronic publishing trends and advances. [http://tiepac.portlandpress.co.uk/books/online/tiepac/session4/ch1.htm]. Site visited at 16.4.99

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