Digital Distinctions

The debate about Open Access will continue to render librarians, publishers, and academics in various directions. 

Meanwhile, Michael Jensen reacts to a recent article about the success of free peer-reviewed online journals. He has some interesting distinctions between journal and book publishing when discussing open source platforms:

Journals are about throughput. Books are about craftsmanship. This is not to demean either publishing variant — they both serve key scholarly needs. But in much of the discussions on these topics, too often “open access” is thought to mean the same thing for every kind of document.

Having worked for a number of publishers who produced both books and journals I do agree that journals by their very nature lend themselves more aptly to digital states. And it does behoove us to take a look at how information is used before changing the way it is disseminated.