Slide 7 of 36
Notes:
We are now in a period of transition. The basic concepts with which we work every day are evolving rapidly. If we, as information providers, do not recognize and adapt to these changes, we risk becoming irrelevant.
We must leave behind the paradigm of page-oriented displays which are ill suited to the computer screen. Various publishers are experimenting with the use of video, machine readable databases, and reader interaction with the electronic article. We have live math fragments where the reader can plug in values and calculate results within an electronic article and 3-dimensional presentations which can be rotated and zoomed in on all under the control of the reader.
We are moving away from the longer, self-sufficient journal article and toward shorter articles with abundant links to previous or supporting material. Within the Astrophysical Journal, the Letters section is growing in popularity.
We now have updated lists of forward links to material published subsequently which refer back to the subject article. We see a growing desire for updatability, for pointers to new results and corrections of errors. There are examples, such as the protein and gene databases, which provide the most up-to-date information on molecular structure. Contributions to those databases are becoming the equivalent of publishing in a journal for the purposes of academic credit.
As search tools become more effective and units of information become smaller, we will eventually have the capability to assemble of clusters of information chunks on the fly from various sources in response to a users query. Each assembly of information will be different according to the specific needs of the user. Many such assemblages could qualify as an article by todays standards. Yet each is a matrix of linked information not a linear construct which exists as an entity only as long as the user needs it.
