This concept that Kent introduces in the third comment, “Good enough”, is one of the things I’ve been thinking about this last year as I’ve gotten used to listening to music on an iPod. The first time I listened to music on it, I thought, “it sounds like AM Car Radio from the 70′s!”. I was used to listening to CDs on ‘way better than good enough’ audio equipment at home and the iPod *at first* seemed like a step backwards in fidelity. Just a few months ago though, I read an article in the NYTimes that said musicians (and this quoted major classical musicians) had switched to the “good enough” iPod fidelity because the convenience (anywhere, anytime, anything) was most important to them in their on-the-go life. I suspect those who enjoy the Kindle — I’m waiting for version 2 — would say the same thing about its “fidelity” (to the printed book) being ‘good enough’ especially when the convenience is factored in of ordering a book online and not having to wait even a day or two. Judging from all the Zappos shoe boxes that show up at the HighWire office, people would say the same about Zappos.

I think that we’re going to see ‘soon enough’ how much “good enough” is applicable to scholarly publishing. We can certainly ask if the “lower fidelity” of an author manuscript appearing in institutional or funder repositories or journal websites — compared to the “high fi” of the final published version — will eventually be “good enough” if it is more convenient (more available, and/or sooner).

The data we have at HighWire suggests that the final published version is preferred, even when it is subscription based and the author manuscript is free. But of course we don’t have data to compare with on use outside of a journal site.

There was a related article in BMJ:

Open access and openly accessible: a study of scientific publications shared via the internet
Jonathan D Wren
BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.38422.611736.E0 (published 12 April 2005)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/bmj.38422.611736.E0v1

which concluded that, “On average, for the high impact journal articles published in 2003, over a third could be located at non-journal websites. Similar trends were observed for the delayed or full open access publications.”

Given that 2003 was before Google Scholar, I’m sure the possibility of locating non-journal-site versions is considerably higher now.

But I’ve take this comment far afield of Britannica!

(Since Joe Esposito was CEO of Britannica when it went online a decade ago, maybe he’d comment?)

John Sack,
Stanford HighWire

On the one hand I’d really like the opportunity to contribute to the EB, I think there’s a level of prestige and authority that Wikipedia doesn’t have, at least with old folks like myself. On the other hand, though, I have a very hard time picturing a scenario where I noticed a shortcoming or error in an EB entry and I would be willing to make my edits after which I would provide my CV and credentials in order to discourse with the EB editors such that those changes would appear as part of the entry. When contrasted with the ease with which I can quickly correct and expand the Wikipedia entry on the same subject, you can see where I would be most likely to invest my time.

In the end, though, the continued viability of the EB as an online resource requires that they fight for attention, not editing. Folks like me like to link to the site that lets us edit entries but the folks who link to Wikipedia vastly outnumber those who edit entries (or care how they’re edited). An open attitude to linking and mashing the EB entries and engagement of the traffic drivers would seem to be of equal or greater importance to opening up the editing and I’ve seen no evidence that they’re making headway there.

Remember that scholarly publishing has also been accused of being (in your words) “complicated, doctrinaire, condescending, and slow” and yet academics and the general public are still willing to tolerate the system because of the trust that is created in the process.

Some good things are worth waiting for.

I agree that the issue of compensation for community-generated content is unresolved.

It may very well be too little, too late for Brittanica. And I use wikipedia for casual questions (think bar bets). But I still cringe that it is the first line of research for countless students. Call me a Luddite.