Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00425)

Doss wrote:

>On the other hand, the speed of distribution and the low cost of publication
>on Internet is going to pickup speed and is going to change the publishing
>landscape in the years to come. It would be interesting to watch the
>developments.
>
>.........doss

It's fascinating how this issue is being discussed on so many lists, so it
is a biggie. On scientific lists people are weighing the pros and cons of
putting scientific journals online. (Right now, many scientific journals
are putting only tables of contents and maybe abstracts of articles on the
Web). On an indexers discussion list, my colleagues are fretting about how
this will affect us, whose livelihoods depend on paper publishing.

Personally, I feel that the growth in online publishing is inevitable and
it is simply a matter of time before companies will work out how to do it
and continue to make a profit. Well, some already have worked out a way to
charge for online materials (periodicals). As for putting theosophical
materials that are in the public domain or with the express permission of
the author, I'm all in favor of it. This way we can truly reach those vast
numbers who may not happen to stroll into a bookstore's occult section, but
may key "reincarnation" (for example) into a search engine.

I don't think that book-length online materials will cut drastically into
book sales in the very near future. For one, you can't take your internet
connection easily to the beach yet. (Well, you can but you need a laptop
with a wireless internet connection. ;-D) More importantly, there seems to
be a limit to the amount of text that one can absorb from a computer screen
in a given timeframe without tiring.

Lynn
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Lynn Moncrief
(techndex@pacbell.net)
TECHindex & Docs
Technical and Scientific Indexing
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