Scott Plutchak from UAB writes in his blog response:
"We certainly don't need to keep the print to satisfy our user
base. Two years ago we stopped getting any print for our
ScienceDirect titles. I did not get a single question, comment,
or expression of concern from faculty or students. We've reached
the point where librarians tend to worry a lot more about the
print than the people who use our libraries do."
I am curious to hear whether this is a commonly held sentiment.
In other words, do the librarians on this list have the sense
that their patrons are operating in a post-print world (not in
the OA/PMC/Battle Royale sense of the term, but meaning have we
outgrown print)? If so, this would be a remarkable shift, and a
remarkably quick one. Certainly when I helped launch The
Berkeley Electronic Press in 2000, print was sacrosanct. The
idea of a viable electronic-only journal publisher was met with
feedback running the wide gamut from skepticism to scorn. If
this equation has indeed flipped in a matter of a half-dozen or
so years, this ranks as one of the most important periods in
scholarly communication history.
Best, Greg
Greg Tananbaum
gtananbaum@gmail.com