Computers have greatly improved the lives of economists. The estimation of econometric models, the manipulation of datasets, word processing, and EconLit are just a few examples of computers' impact. However, computer networks may dramatically change the way we work. Already we have seen hints with electronic mail, mailing lists, on-line card catalogs, access to U.S. government data, and the start of an on-line working paper culture (more than 3,000 on-line working papers at last count; see EconWPA, and , WoPEC. Soon, back issues of the AER will go on-line, and across academia, there are more than 300 peer-reviewed electronic journals (see e · journal) with hundreds of U.K. journals going on-line in 1996 (Hitchcock, Carr, and Hall (1996)).
An optimistic vision of the future might best be demonstrated with the following vignette:
Dr. Smith, reading an article in the latest JPE on-line with his PC in California, was surprised by a footnote that cited a recent article in the AER. He clicked to on the reference, searched the AER article, and quickly found the results of a key regression. He had not followed this literature for several years, and it was counter to his experience. Opening up another window, he tapped into the AEA's on-line archive for the paper's data in Tennessee and retrieved them. He then ran the regression, tried additional diagnostics, and modified the specification. He was surprised to find that the results were quite robust. Curious about other recent results in this literature, he then moved to the paper's references and clicked his mouse on several related papers to jump to their on-line versions via a hypertext link (he was thankful those journals were on-line, as his small library did not carry their paper versions). He then recalled that he could use this procedure for a project he thought about long ago, if he could remember where he saw the data. He then opened up a window to the AEA's database of data in economic publications (an outgrowth of EconLit). He soon found the data on-line at a journal archive in New Zealand. He contacted one of his graduate students in Virginia and they began an on-line audio conference. They opened their word processors in `conference' mode and began jointly and simultaneously outlining and writing a new article--together editing, modifying, and pasting new regressions results and graphs. In an hour, they had a new paper partially written.In short, a fully networked world could offer much easier access to the information (working papers, articles, bibliographical information, and data) that lies at the heart of what we do. Rather than visiting the library for a journal you do not subscribe to, or requesting it via Inter-Library Loan if they do not subscribe, or writing or calling an author for his data or working paper, this type of information may be freely available at your desk through your computer.
However, this world exists only in embryonic form, and we are now at a cusp point, and any number of
outcomes are possible. The current relationships within and between
publishers, libraries, and academics might be maintained with networks
simply replacing paper as the means of moving and storing information.
Or, entirely new relationships resulting from technological change
may arise that are more in keeping with academic principles and
traditions. The path to any future is expected to be tumultuous.
A recent report by librarians and academic publishers (Scovill (1995))
examines three scenarios for their future, and, in two, some or many
publishers and libraries cease to exist. The underlying theme seems
to be a common one that during periods of technological change, new
technologies not only improve existing practices, but may usher in
entirely different institutional arrangements. For instance, the
Internet may even change the way cars are sold (Taylor (1996)). In
such a world, can we expect our ``industry'' to be unchanged?
One possible future continues current practices with little improvement in access to information, albeit with that information traveling over networks. Information will still be tucked away in distant libraries where you have no privileges, or at publishers' servers where you must purchase it. Specifically, as described below, publishers and libraries are working on making their current offerings available over the Internet. Certainly, publishers have every incentive (profits) to maintain the status quo (not the distribution method, but their overall position in the exchange of academic information). Thus, under this scenario, the superstructure--the technology of moving and storing information--changes, but no fundamental change takes place in the relationships between the players.
Roes (1994) examines a somewhat
different possibility: ``electronic
document delivery.'' For scholars, this system is broadly defined
as any method of electronic delivery of journal articles or similar
material. Today, it supplements a library's collection, and is
often implemented with faxed copies of a journal articles not held
by the local library. Perhaps the best known document delivery firm is
CARL.
As Roes (1994) explains, this system
could evolve into electronic documents. With electronic document
delivery, the implicit assumption is that libraries and publishers
play roughly traditional roles--publishers hold copyrights, libraries
store journals, and they and users may pay copyright fees for the
electronic copies of material. In short, it is another future that
roughly maintains the status quo.
Another possibility is that scholarly material becomes freely
available on the Internet, but is unorganized and all but impossible
to find. Rather than economists placing their material on central
servers, or registering it with databases,
they simply place them
on their own or their department's web sites and expect others to find
them. This scenario is similar to one in
Scovill (1995), and it
could be labeled the ``Field of Dreams Approach''--put it out there,
and they will find it. This is clearly naive, since at last count,
there were tens of millions of web pages; a search at
AltaVista, an
Internet search engine, found more than 600,000 documents containing the
word ``economic,'' and more than 5,000 with ``Adam Smith.'' Clearly,
someone searching for the latest working papers on Adam Smith is
likely to be in for a rather difficult search. On the other hand,
if the author of a working paper used
EconWPA,
or registered the paper
with
WoPEc,
a quick search of either will quickly locate the paper.
We argue that a different future, with both more easily
accessed and easily found information, is more consistent with
academic traditions and values. This future is now possible with
the advent of powerful personal computers connected
via networks. In our view, these new tools open up entirely new
opportunities for scholarly exchange, and will enable immediate and
free access to most any sort of information desired by an academic.
This paper does not offer a formal model, but rather a conceptual view of how computer networks should change the way we work. It is also intended to start a debate in our profession about how we can organize the flow of information that is critical to our professional lives. This paper is also a brief overview of how networks will influence academia; more details can be found in Okerson and O'Donnell (1995), Scovill (1995), Peek and Newby (1996), Hitchcock, Carr, and Hall (1996), and many issues of the Journal of Electronic Publishing, while Bailey (1996) contains a very extensive bibliography.
This paper is organized as follows. The next section looks at academic principles that do not change with technology or institutional arrangements. These are concepts to be kept in mind during this period of technological change in the profession. The third section examines the impact of networks on working papers, journals, and libraries. The fourth address access to data and indices to information. The fifth looks at entirely new opportunities, and the sixth suggests a roadmap for moving to a networked world. A conclusion summarizes these ideas. Thus, this paper examines the entire flow of information in the profession and how it might change with the arrival of computer networks.