THE SYNOPSIS OF HUGENHOLTZ IS A NICELY STATED SUMMARY
Peter B. Boyce
American Astronomical Society

In thinking about this balance, ask this group to consider the totally interlinked universe into which we are proceeding. We will no longer find it sufficient to read one article of the traditional kind.  We, as scholars, will want to browse many articles and many other kinds of digital material in pursuit of knowledge. The interlinked world of the Web should open up the opportunity to get at information from other disciplines which may be relevant to our work.  Previously, such work was essentially unknown to us because it was published in journals to which we did not have access. Now, with proper information location and retrieval systems, and an orderly structure to the "literature," we can find and read material that we had not known about before.

In retrieving and paying for information, we will no longer be negotiating price and payment for single atricles, we will be requesting many possible articles within a short time.  And, we will want to view, perhaps, parts of articles, a critical figure, or a table of numbers. Of course, we will have to be able to browse an article to see if it is sufficiently relevant to be worth using (reading in detail). At that point we should be paying for use.

Any system which is set up to perform such individual transactions must be rapid enough that it does not impede the information search process. Systems must be thought out from the standpoint of the user as well as the copyright owner.

In astronomy and physics, a few of us think that the content of published scholarly articles will not be worth as much as the reference links, the electronic material and the whole information system in which the article resides.  The actual content will have been made available in the various preprint servers, such as the xxx.lanl.gov service. The additional added value of published article must be sufficient to make it worth the cost paid by the user (and sometimes the author). Otherwise the informal information exchange systems will replace the scholarly published journals, no matter what the copyright situation is.

Personally, I believe we need the structure and organization which the journals can bring to the system. We must not let intellectual property issues which are designed for the commercial market impede the free flow of scholarly knowledge. Nor must we allow the information exchange system to descend into a chaotic sea of informal communication in which it is impossible for the reader to find her way. If the system of copyright clearance (for want of a better term) is too cumbersome, users will be driven to take the informal route. I think this will not be a good result.