Manchurian Books

A
"scholarly divide" has opened between the haves (academic
institutions with rich endowments and well-heeled
corporations) and the haves not (all the others).
Paradoxically, access to authoritative and authenticated
knowledge has declined as the number of professional journals
has proliferated. This is not to mention the long (and often
crucial) delays in publishing research results and the shoddy
work of many under-paid and over-worked peer reviewers.

The Internet was suppose to change all that. Originally, a
computer network for the exchange of (restricted and open)
research results among scientists and academics in
participating institutions - it was supposed to provide
instant publishing, instant access and instant gratification.
It has delivered only partially. Preprints of academic papers
are often placed online by their eager authors and subjected
to peer scrutiny. But this haphazard publishing cottage
industry did nothing to dethrone the print incumbents and
their avaricious pricing.

The major missing element is, of course, respectability.


Pages:
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40