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Re: DRAFT recommendations v1.2

Dear Syd,
I acknowledge safe receipt of your draft recommendations and Howard's elaborations.
 
Whilst I agree obviously with International Tables being online as essential, and urgently needed, I find myself struggling to agree with the implications of the 'unanimous view....that use of print-on-paper will rapidly decline in the next decade.'
 
specifically this begs the question ;- decline to zero?
 
The suggestion I offer then is that perhaps short print versions should be allowed for in IUCr's planning of the various IT titles along the lines of the teaching edition of Volume A. This would retain flexibility and allow the non-tabular data type of content to be printed (but with examples of tabular data still included) eg in the way that Howard has suggested ie according to demand.
 
Flexibility of approach is required I believe because I think there is a very significant risk in the recommendations of assuming that the paperless office will be 95% of researchers' behaviours in a very short timescale. I may be old fashioned but my office is definitely not paperless yet [and with not much sign of abatement either]. Rather the experience I have is a wider range of information availablities but where paper is definitely still very much an option one uses.
 
Greetings to all,
John
 


Howard Flack <[email protected]> wrote:
> though 1(c)
> may be seen as a bit too prescriptive.


Instead how about:

The maintenance of print-on-paper volumes of IT is a matter of market
demand. A switch from bulk lithograph printing to digital printing to
print-on-demand will enable smaller numbers of volumes to be printed and
warehoused, but with an increased unit production cost and selling
price. Timely decisions will need to made on this matter.


John R Helliwell
Professor of Structural Chemistry, The University of Manchester;
Joint Appointee with CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory;
Editor-in-Chief Acta Crystallographica published by IUCr.

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