The Dissemination of Scholarly Information: Old Approaches and New Possibilities

Current methods of disseminating scholarly information focus on the use of journals who retain exclusive rights in the material they publish. Using a simple model we explore the reasons for the development of the traditional journal model, why it is no longer efficient and how it could be improved upon. One of our main aims is to go beyond the basic question of distribution (access) to that of filtering, i.e. the process of matching information with the scholars who want it. With the volume of information production ever growing - and attention ever more scarce - filtering is becoming crucial and digital technology offers the possibility of radical innovation in this area. In particular, distribution and filtering can be separated allowing filtering to be made open and decentralized. This would promises to deliver dramatic increases in transparency and efficiency as well as greatly increased innovation in related product, processes and services.