Beginning with its next volume (#67) North American Birds, the publication of the American Birding Association (ABA) will officially be paperless - that is, an electronic-only journal.
Editor Ned Brinkley writes in his online blog this week that North American Birds will have its core components-the regional reports, Changing Seasons, Pictorial Highlights, feature articles, Photo Essays, Photo Salons, Birding Journals-but all material will be presented in full color, including regional maps. The journal will be downloaded by subscribers, using a passcode, to personal computers (or other devices), and so will be searchable and portable. Subscription rates will be lower, to reflect the savings on printing, paper, and postage.
"Though many of us-your editorial group included-will miss the feel of paper in the hand, and all the pleasures and memories that come with it, we recognize that paper publications like ours are critically endangered," Brinkley writes. "With the digital revolution, reading practices are changing rapidly, and the rapid movement away from paper has had stark economic impacts on enterprises like the North American Birds tradition. Not just reading itself, indeed, the circulation of information has changed radically, which also affects our tradition. In decades past, many readers have looked to the journal for information of a particular kind, and some of that information (raw data) can be located in more timely fashion, indeed almost instantaneously, online in this new century. Much of the analysis the journal provides, of course, cannot be found online, at least not yet."
http://blog.aba.org/2013/03/the-new-north-american-birds-takes-flight.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aba-blog+%28ABA+Blog%29>Read more here
