---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:37:47 EDT
From: Diane Lewis <DILEWIS@IGSRGLIB01.ER.USGS.GOV>
Subject: Re: Journal use (Mary Wilke)

I want to add my $0.02 to Mary Wilke's thoughtful essay (if such a
term can be applied to e-mail).  She is absolutely and profoundly
correct in her analysis of why e-journals are not the ultimate
solution to the current journal crisis.  Just wanted to add that, for
some fields (art, architecture, geology, etc.), e-journals won't cut
it until the visual material (intricate charts, graphs,
multicolored photographs, et. al.) these subjects require in their journals
can be replicated and received (precisely as published) online. And
it is not acceptable to have the loading and display of each image require
minutes rather than a few seconds. Since this entails considerable expense
for producers, to say nothing of end users ( I don't know about
anyone else's computing environment, but even the Government doesn't
 equip us with state-of-the-art computers or printers), one suspects this
won't happen anytime soon.
Diane M. Lewis
Serial Records Librarian
U.S. Geological Survey Library
dilewis@usgs.gov
(703)648-4399

"If you want peace, work for justice."--Pope Paul VI.