Re: Restructuring Learned Society Communications

From: Murray Turoff <turoff_at_CONCENTRIC.NET>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 21:54:45 -0400

Arthur
Because of the exact factors you bring out there will be a new equilibrium
point and it would be such that the total number of papers would go down but
the utility of the papers to the scientific process would be higher.
I suspect cutting the amount that is published by 30 to 50% would be healthy
for science. Last time I saw some statistics I think 30% of the papers
published in math are never cited. I don’t know what it is to day by various
fields but if one goes to papers that may not be sighted after three years I
would guess it was a large percentage and maybe small electronic communities of
researchers will replace the need for so many short lived publications.
Received on Tue Aug 25 1998 - 19:17:43 BST