Electronic or print?

["Joseph Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

A recent thread on this list touched on how much printing readers 
of journal articles are doing.  This has implications for 
estimating the total costs of the dissemination of materials and 
also what share different parties shoulder of those costs.

An anecdote:  On a plane this week I noted a gentleman with a 
large stack of printed-out articles in his lap.  He appeared to 
be an economist.  The papers lay atop a terribly cool Sony Vaio 
laptop.

So, access to materials somehow (I didn't inquire), a very good 
personal computing device, and a stack of printed paper that was 
a blessing to the stockholders of Hewlett Packard.

How representative is this individual?  Someone can investigate 
the numbers--or we can call HP and ask.  My sense of the 
situation is that for the most part we are not *publishing* 
electronically:  we are *producing* materials electronically and 
*consuming* materials in print.

Speaking as someone who reads almost everything off a screen, I 
don't believe for a minute that this situation will last, but it 
does challenge some assumptions about the costs of published 
research and the nature of our still very primitive systems for 
electronic distribution.

I encourage members of this list to participate in this 
experiment:  For one month, have your organization disable all 
printers, copiers, and scanners. How electronic are we? 
Remember to duck when people start to throw their shoes.

Joe Esposito