The evolution of electronic scholarly communication Andrew Odlyzko AT&T Labs - Research amo@research.att.com January 17, 1999 Extended abstract Scholarly communication is in the early stages of a fascinating and far-reaching transformation made possible by the computing and communications revolution. Much has been said and written about this transformation already, and my conference lecture was based on papers that have been published or are in the process of publication. Therefore in this note I will avoid duplication and only summarize some key points and provide a list of references. That the references are overwhelmingly to my own papers is not a claim to originality, and simply reflects where various quotes, estimates, and predictions come from. Those papers contain extensive references to the pioneering work of many other scholars who have worked in this area. Additional comprehensive references and treatments of other parts of scholarly publishing can be found in the collections [EkmanQ, PeekN]. The evolution of scholarly communication towards an electronic format is driven by two main factors: (i) potential cost savings, and (ii) attractive new features. This evolution is also inhibited by the huge inertia of the academic system. As a result, movement is slow, and we are likely to reach a stable state for many years. 1. Journals is not where the main action is. Although most attention is devoted to journals, the most interesting experiments are those with novel forms of communication that are not hindered by traditions and vested interests. These include preprint archives (the most successful and best known the one developed by Paul Ginsparg and his collaborators, ), as well as less formal systems, such as netnews discussion groups (sci.math, sci.physics), and interactive tools on personal home pages (such as my colleague Neil Sloane's integer sequence server at ). To quote Susan Rosenblatt [Odlyzko4], "available information drives patterns of usage," and useful information available outside the established channels is growing rapidly. If no action were taken by publishers and libraries, those institutions would eventually become irrelevant, as their offerings would lack the features, coverage, and easy availability of the new media. However, both libraries and publishers are adopting to the new environment, and the key question is how well they will do, and in particular whether some roles will be reallocated. Libraries used to be responsible for preservation of scholarly material, for example, but are likely to lose that role to publishers. New technologies are creating openings for new entrants, so that copy shops such as Kinko's can become significant players in distribution, usurping roles of both libraries and publishers [Odlyzko4]. 2. Journals are rapidly moving online, but are sticking to traditional formats. There is fast growth in new electronic-only journals, published by scholars themselves, without involvement of traditional publishers. Many of these journals are operated with no fees at all, or else with submission fees paid by authors, and thus freely accessible. However, electronic journal publishing is dominated (in volume of material) by traditional printed journals that now also have electronic versions. These electronic versions are often derisively dismissed as "shovelware," since they consist largely of traditional articles that have been made available in digital format. Even the new electronic-only journals are overwhelmingly of this form. This is caused primarily by the inertia in academia. They are reluctant to experiment with new formats, and so even the electronic-only journals are overwhelmingly of the traditional form, since they need to gain credibility among scholars if they are to attract authors. 3. The "journal crisis" refers to the inability of libraries to keep acquiring all the journals they have been getting, and not being able to afford to subscribe to new ones. It is thus an economic issue, and the most promising way to solve it is by lowering costs of scholarly publishing. Electronic publishing offers an opportunity to save at least 90% of the costs of the current system. Publishers are not willing to admit this yet, but there is plentiful evidence that such savings are feasible, provided one is willing to rethink the entire process and give up some non-essential features [Odlyzko3]. However, in the short run, what is more likely to happen is that electronic publishing will enable publishers to preserve their revenues, profits, and inefficient production methods, and that savings will come on the library side [Odlyzko6]. The reason is that the "journal crisis" is really a library cost crisis. For every dollar that libraries spend on journals, they spend at least two on internal costs, most of which are associated with handling of physical copies. By eliminating print editions, and digitizing back issues (a process that is surprisingly inexpensive), publishers can greatly reduce the costs of the entire system without reducing their revenues. 4. Inertia is inhibiting the evolution of scholarly publishing. Adoption rates for new technologies are generally slower than is commonly thought [Odlyzko5], and they are especially slow in academia when they involve modifying ancient traditions. The Ginsparg preprint archive has become the primary method for communicating new results in a wide variety of fields. It provides much faster information dissemination, at much lower cost, and with fewer of the inequities that plague traditional systems (such as preprints being restricted to "insider" groups, or expensive journals not being available in Third World countries). Its attractiveness is demonstrated by the fact that once some subfield begins to rely on the Ginsparg archive for a significant fraction of its papers, reliance quickly becomes total. There is no example of any area giving up the archive. Still, although the dramatic achievements of the archive have been well publicized for years, and it does process preprints equal in volume to about half of the mathematics papers produced each year, it still covers only on the order of 1% of all scientific, technical, and medical literature. The general growth in preprints that are available on the Web, whether on preprint archives like Ginsparg's, or on departmental preprint servers, or on personal home pages, is not stunning. Large changes in scholarly publishing are not likely to occur until university administrations take action [Odlyzko1, Odlyzko3]. 5. Popular concerns about electronic publishing are largely misplaced. However, it should be recognized that in many cases they do reflect fears that are not unfounded, about basic changes in scholarly communication. Such changes are indeed inevitable, and are also unpredictable. That was also true with earlier transitions. For example, Plato's famous objections to writing [Odlyzko4] were correct; by eliminating memorization, writing led to a flood of information, much of it of poor quality, and lowered the levels of understanding. Print pushed those tendencies much further, and electronics is of course amplifying them even more. At a deeper level, print changed the scholarly culture by creating the idea of a definitive edition. However, this was just an artifact of the expensive process of printing. Before Gutenberg, scholars were used to the idea that every copy of a manuscript was defective in some way. Electronic now raises the specter of a multitude of versions, destroying the comfortable tradition of a single definitive version, but bringing us back to an earlier era of scholarship [Odlyzko4, Odlyzko5]. There will be many more changes of this type, but although they may disturb some comfortable traditions, they will lead to a much better scholarly communication system. References: [EkmanQ] R. Ekman and R. Quandt, eds., "Technology and Scholarly Communication," Univ. Calif. Press, 1998. To appear. Many of the articles from this volume are available in J. Electronic Publishing 4(1) (September 1998), . [Licklider] J. C. R. Licklider, "Libraries of the Future," MIT Press, 1965. [Odlyzko1] A. M. Odlyzko, Tragic loss or good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals, Intern. J. Human-Computer Studies (formerly Intern. J. Man-Machine Studies) 42 (1995), pp. 71-122. Also in the electronic J. Univ. Comp. Sci., pilot issue, 1994, . Available at . [Odlyzko2] A. M. Odlyzko, On the road to electronic publishing, Euromath Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 1 (June 1996), pp. 49-60. Available at . [Odlyzko3] A. M. Odlyzko, The economics of electronic journals, First Monday 2(8) (August 1997), . Also to be published in "Technology and Scholarly Communication," R. Ekman and R. Quandt, eds., Univ. Calif. Press, 1998. Available at . [Odlyzko4] A. M. Odlyzko, Silicon dreams and silicon bricks: the continuing evolution of libraries, Library Trends 46 (no. 1) (Summer 1997), pp. 152-167. Available at . [Odlyzko5] A. M. Odlyzko, The slow evolution of electronic publishing, pp. 4-18 in "Electronic Publishing '97: New Models and Opportunities," A. J. Meadows and F. Rowland, eds., ICCC Press, 1997. Available at . [Odlyzko6] A. M. Odlyzko, Competition and cooperation: Libraries and publishers in the transition to electronic scholarly journals, to be published. Available at . [PeekN] R. P. Peek and G. B. Newby, eds., "Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier," MIT Press, 1996.