Publishing On-line

Talking Point III: Breadth of Scholarly Reach

The value of scholarship on the Web can no longer be discounted. The fact that a number of traditional print journals have begun to co-publish online serves to underscore the dramatic move to electronic scholarship. (The Muse Project out of Johns Hopkins University is the most notable contributor to this effort.) The ease with which any one connected to the World Wide Web can search an index and access an article makes it an extremely auspicious resource for time-pressed scholars. Not only does online technology facilitate the collection of scholarly literature, the fact that numerous provocative materials are published online makes online searching a necessity in constructing the informed argument. It is not such a bold statement to declare that in the very near future, credible scholarship in some key areas will have to cite some sources that exist as electronic rather than print materials.

One of the co-authors affirmed the need for careful online searching as well as offline searching while constructing his dissertation proposal. Although only tangential references had been made to his topic in the existing printed communication literature, a careful online search revealed a paper on the very topic published on a Web site by a scholar in the United Kingdom. Traditional print indices (which are Eurocentric) would not have turned up this valuable resource. Moreover, given that the full text of the article was available online meant that the reader could review the material immediately, rather than writing to the author and waiting weeks or months for the paper to arrive.

We think the point here punctuates the need to recognize online publication as scholarly activity. Unlike discipline-specific journals whose circulation reaches only a few thousand subscribers and libraries, Web based publications, with their ease of indexicality and potential audience of millions, can be of service to many, many more people than their print counterparts. Moreover, these journals not only have the potential to enrich the work of fellow scholars in disparate geographical locations, they also have the potential to reach, and thus to introduce, people unaffiliated with the discipline to the field.