Easing into electronic publishing

[Gary Noonan]

        The recent messages about electronic publishing show that there is
not yet a consensus on this topic. Some people worry about the archival
quality of electronic publications and some perhaps simply prefer paper ones.
         Perhaps the way to approach electronic publishing is by putting
electronic reprints onto the World Wide Web of printed publications. Such a
step will familiarize people with electronic papers and prepare the way
perhaps for fully electronic journals. I have a monograph in press with the
Milwaukee Public Museum, and it will be published by conventional printed
methods.  Both the text and drawings are in electronic form. I'm going to
ask the museum to purchase me Adobe Acrobat and will later put electronic
reprints on our forthcoming World Wide Web pages. People will be able to
view the monograph on their computer screens and print it out with
pagination the same as in the printed form.
         Another hopefully non-controversial project will be to convert the
monograph into the first of a series of non-technical handbooks for
identifying carabid beetles of wetlands. Since the beetles may be good
environmental indicators, ecologists and  wetland managers may find such a
handbook useful as may amateurs. World Wide Web publication through Adobe
Acrobat files would seem to offer a low cost method of reaching out to
non-systematists.
         Electronic publishing gives us the opportunity to:(1) economically
distribute reprints; (2) and economically distribute non-technical versions
of our works. I know that electronic publishing will have other benefits but
suggest that hopefully the above two benefits will be noncontroversial.


  *************************************************************
  * Gary Noonan, Curator of Insects, Milwaukee Public Museum  *
  * 800 W. Wells,  Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233 USA             *
  * and Adjunct Associate Professor of Zoology, University of *
  * Wisconsin-Milwaukee carabid at mpm1.mpm.edu                  *
  * voice (414) 278-2762  fax (414) 223-1396                  *
  *************************************************************



  *************************************************************
  * Gary Noonan, Curator of Insects, Milwaukee Public Museum  *
  * 800 W. Wells,  Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233 USA             *
  * and Adjunct Associate Professor of Zoology, University of *
  * Wisconsin-Milwaukee carabid at mpm1.mpm.edu                  *
  * voice (414) 278-2762  fax (414) 223-1396                  *
  *************************************************************