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One of the first objections I hear when describing the power of the Internet is "you can't curl up in bed with a computer to read a book!" When speaking with researchers I'm often asked how the quality of information can be assured if anyone with Internet access can publish anything they want.
While books are often read in bed or under a tree, it is unusual to see a manager curled up by a fireplace enjoying the most recent copy of a professional journal. It is important to realize there are two very different reasons to read printed material.
Reading a novel for pleasure or thumbing through a weekly news magazine are cases where the reader is only interested in the contents of a particular publication. The "package" as prepared by the author or publisher suits the needs of the reader exactly.
However a manager or other professional might need information on a very specific subject and is forced to search through back issues of available journals to which she has access. In this case the information is very difficult to retrieve because it is scattered among a variety of sources with little or no structure. The "packages" &emdash; monthly journals, newsletters and textbooks &emdash; are not a good resource but they are the only source available.
In this case, the reader wants information and is severely limited by the way it has been packaged. The traditional system of bound volumes works quite well for pleasure reading but is virtually unmanageable for professional use. Ideally a professional would have access to information without knowing its original source or publication date. That's what the Internet provides &emdash; a vast and growing quantity of information retrievable by key word &emdash; not by journal and date of publication.
Of course some futurists would argue that even pleasure reading will be computer based but there is no compelling reason for that to happen soon. If and when it does happen it will only be because computer displays and operation advance considerably beyond the current state of the art and readers want such capability.
Professional publications will change with incredible speed because virtually every aspect of electronic media is superior to print for technical information. The biggest improvement as mentioned above relates to retrieval in the months and years following publication &emdash; an impossibility with printed journals. Much of what a manager needs may have been published long before it is needed or in a journal not available to the individual.
It is likely that future journals will be "virtual" since associations and other publishers may never actually handle the original "document". Authors will prepare material on their own computers and upload it directly to the Internet. What role would a journal publisher play? Many people have difficulty understanding how peer review &emdash; the process where experts critique articles before they are accepted for publication &emdash; can occur when the author interacts directly with the publishing medium &emdash; the Internet. In fact, an electronic journal could operate with the same review process. An author would transmit an article to the publisher who would forward it electronically to reviewers. After one or more iterations of comment and correction, the author could publish it on a Web page and it would be listed on a "virtual table of contents" on the publisher's Web page. The journal would exist but only in electronic form but the articles would go through the same review as the printed version.
Of course, economics and other business issues enter into the equation. Part of the reason to belong to a professional association is to receive its publications. Since membership might be affected if publications are widely available on the Internet, a number of possibilities must be considered. First, files on the Internet could be password protected so only members could access them.
Second, new methods of payment are being developed for the Net so it will be possible to charge for information by the "byte" or by the page. While this may seem onerous at first, the mechanisms will be automatic and the charges extremely low. In the past we've charged by the volume for information &emdash; which results in paying for much that we do not need. It makes much more sense to charge in smaller units &emdash; specifically for the information we read and use.
Charges can be low because Internet publishing is very inexpensive. There are no printing costs, no delivery costs, no inventories to maintain, and no retail outlets to support as with popular publications. Five megabytes of information (about 3,000 typed pages) can be stored on a Web site for less than $10 per month. That certainly compares favorably to the cost of printing and distributing the same amount of information to several thousand people in the traditional manner. Of course, each reader must have Internet access, but with connection prices falling rapidly, this will soon cost no more than local telephone service.
There is another factor to consider. Once an author has prepared an article he has the option of going through a traditional publication cycle &emdash; which can take from two months to a year or more &emdash; or publishing directly on the Internet in a matter of minutes. The Internet option was not appealing in the past because potential readership was low. With online services growing at double digit rates every month, that will not be the case in the future.
Now an author who has been writing for a newsletter or other "informal" publication may decide to publish directly on the Internet. Newsletters rarely pay for contributions, have limited distribution and are difficult to file and retrieve. When large numbers of professionals have Internet access, many authors will avoid the complexity of dealing with a publisher and produce what they want, on the schedule they choose. If the author wants a professional organization to recognize and promote the article, he will have to forward it to a "virtual editor" who will decide whether or not it's worth listing on the association's home page
When the automobile was invented, many people said "it'll never replace the horse". After all, a horse can follow a path without constantly being "steered"; they never break down and when they need to eat, they can always continue on to the next stable. A horse doesn't just "run out of gas". Looking around today, we see that the naysayers were partially right.
Almost anyplace you go, you will see people on horseback. When someone wants the pleasure of riding, they get on a horse. However, when that person wants to "go someplace", he will usually travel by automobile. It is likely that people will be curling up with a good book for years to come. However, as the "information superhighway" develops beyond its current "Model T" stage, when people want information, they will increasingly turn to online information services.
One final benefit of electronic publishing, is that people who enjoy horseback riding may actually have some trees to ride through in the years to come. It would be ironic indeed if we could not sit under a tree to read a book because all the trees were cut down to print books!