Dallas (1995) captures our dilemma neatly when he comments: "Great invention; now what's it for?" The sooner we cease gongoozling the technology of electronic publishing (which still only really works on a good day anyway) the better. Electronic publishing is overdue a healthy dose of world-class marketing thinking and campaigning. What valued benefits in use does it or can it offer to its customers? What new products or services can it offer to deliver those benefits? What prices will be willingly paid? What forms of marketing communication will be most appropriate? How will the products and services be distributed? Concludes that, unless these questions are addressed professionally sooner rather than later, a great deal of investment will yield little return -or worse. Back to basicsSo what is electronic publishing? It is readily defined as using computers in the processes of capturing and disseminating knowledge and information. It implies that the parties at each end of the process, and as may be required in the middle, have computers that can converse with one another. The conversations can be either interactive on line or static via either disk or fixed time data interchange (EDI). Such conversations, without computer mediation, are scarcely a new idea. Interactive conversations have always taken place between individuals face to face, and latterly using telephones since the dawn of the twentieth century. Static conversations have taken place through manuscripts since writing began, via printed books since the fifteenth century, through journals, paintings, photographs, cinematography, radio and television.What is new therefore is the computer's capability to avoid or complement the ways in which we hitherto interacted or in which we held static conversations. The way in which printing avoided and complemented the work of scribes, telephones and radio avoided or complemented the need to travel to hear, the cinema and television avoided or complemented the need to travel to see as well as to hear, so too computers avoid or complement the need…to print to read, to travel to hear or to travel to see. Multimedia publishing using computer mediation encompasses them all, albeit smell and touch remain absent.It is salutary to note that all developments thus far have not yet eliminated any antecedent medium -people still like to write, they like to travel to listen, to talk and to see. As such paperless publishing seems as unlikely an outcome as the demise of the cinema, painting, television, radio or the telephone. Yet they will only live on in a fresh complementarity to what electronic publishing can best provide. Electronic publishing in the fullness of time will force those new complementarities among the earlier technologies, also implying avoidances as well.
Individuals worldwide are seeking to remain relevant and effective through learning which, if not actually continuous, is an integral part of their working life. Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to compete on the basis of collective learning and the ability to apply this learning in practice. Technology is increasingly an enabler in this ongoing learning process. Pioneering institutions are developing architectures that support individual and organizational learning. World‐class development programmes are being delivered using the “virtual university” model. So too is support for lifelong learning. Issues being addressed include: creating, maintaining and distributing courseware; ensuring access to current and archival literature; programme supervision and the development of a community of learning. Claims further benefits for scholars of electronic publishing are being realized, but much potential remains untapped.
The British Food Journal has had a long and distinguished career as an information source both for those involved in regulation and those who produce within the food industry. Indeed, in 1988 the journal enters its 90th year of this service. A review of its past also provides a review of key trends and evolutions in food manufacture and control. The article highlights key issues and developments from 1899 to 1988.
This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen
Describes the key elements of total logistics systems and their cycle times for requisite service levels at least cost. Shows how these constructs originally emerged from military necessity but have more recently been driven for commercial and manufacturing advantage. Analyses the traditional logistics cycle in academic and professional publishing and then demonstrates how the application of a total logistics system approach with the emerging capabilities of electronics totally transforms the performance of the system, reducing cycle time by 75 per cent. Significantly re‐engineers the five key elements of logistics systems ‐ facilities, unitization, communications, inventory and transportation ‐ and rewrites the cost/benefit equation of service levels. Explores the opportunities for backward and forward integration by traditional librarians and publishers respectively in the re‐engineered total system.
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