Description of Tentative Plans for Research (1996)

Martin Halbert

My proposed study of the transformation of scholarly communication systems will include three aspects; a cultural and historical study, an economic analysis, and development of a theoretical model.  

The cultural and historical study will cover an in depth examination of many selected transformations of scholarly communication systems and their impacts through history from the invention of the printing press until modern times, but with emphasis on the twentieth century.  

The economic analysis will focus on relevant selected factors.  Examples include: the interactions between the academic publishing industry and libraries, university funding and scholarly publications, and the information publication cycle and the economics of the Internet.

The development of a theoretical model will build on the observations of the cultural and historical study and the economic analysis to thoroughly describe the phenomenon of scholarly communication systems as they evolve through time.  The conceptual framework of the theoretical model should have predictive value, and be able to gauge the worth of different proposals for new innovations in scholarly communication systems.