[Bioperl-l] 'Papers'

[Eugen Leitl]

On 8 Apr 2002, Phillip Lord wrote:

> They haven't be around for very long. Free electronic access now
> sounds great, but 10 years ago no one really cared that much, as
> computers were not powerful enough to cope with diagrams, or worse
> photo's. 

1992? They were, of course. It's the global networks that weren't there at
the time, at least as widespread coverage and ease of use is concerned.  
The problem with electronic papers is that the medium doesn't have an
established peer review mechanism yet, and the researchers are relunctant
to use it, as long as it doesn't. Plus, established peer-reviewed
periodicals are exerting pressure by claiming that electronic preprint
publishing is publishing, and they don't publish already published papers.

The mechanism is simple, really.