Scholarly communication revamped

Every assignment that I have done this semester has left me with a slight jaw dropping awe at the convenience with which I can access the work of hundreds of thousands of researchers without having to shift so much as an inch of my posture.

A quick flashback to the day the first assignments were given out in class. While instructions were being given on how to look for relevant material online, my brain started conjuring romantic little trips on lonely nights to the library, to be spent working amidst lots and lots of thick BOOKS and yellowed JOURNALS…….ONLINE?? Did I just hear online?? The word shook me out of my reverie and electronic reality began to dawn on me. Doing that first assignment using a single computer in the library, and the subsequent ones done at home on my laptop rubbed away the remaining romance for good-old fashioned time consuming research. The good-old fashioned charm notwithstanding, all of us owe the existence of a LIFE outside the libraries to these journals available online.

According to Professor Garvey, a psychologist at The John Hopkins University, communication is the essence of Science. In other words, communication is the key to research and learning. To be effective this communication has to be timely and accessible. While eliminating manual processes improves upon the time factor, electronic handling also mean better accessibility because of the lower production costs. It makes sense to have research paper cost as less as possible since, the general public does sponsor research in a way having already paid taxes to the Government.
What was made easy by electronic journals has been made easier with newer tools, not the least important of which is Google Scholar. But that again is another topic for another time …..