Thanks to Andrew Rindsberg for the detailed publishing comments.  They were
so perfect.
 
A hundred years ago it often took 20 years or more for news of new
scientific discoveries to travel around the world.  This was often
accomplished by hand-written letter.
 
In the 1960's a nudibranch species named in Australia was given a different
name from Mexico three years later.  Publications still took many months to
travel around the world.
 
In the seventies, paper publications cut the information time-lag down to a
month or two.  Telephone, radio and television also assured rapid
communication of significant news.
 
Now, in the nineties, the Web makes this information available around the
world within days or hours.  It also means that color photos can be produced
almost anywhere in the world at low cost and receive the widest possible
distribution.
 
The major problems remaining are the PERMANENT recording of the information
and the COST of that permanent recording.  One comment on foreign
subscription exchanges:  my bank charges me a minimum of $10.00 for any wire
transfer (with the originator also charged) BUT they will cash a check in
any foreign currency at no charge.
 
To follow up on a thread from several months back, the Internet version of a
work appears in many different type styles on many different printers.  The
pages are numbered differently, if at all and most of the printouts do not
represent the original writing.  AND you can forget about any similarity
with photos.  (I guess we could refer to something as: "Published sometime
in March, 1999, somewhere in the world, on somewhere between page 1 and 125,
then the link went dead")
 
If you want to know if everyone will pay for a publication when FREE on the
web, ask if everyone pays for cable tv.
 
Steve
 
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