Editorial | Wave of the future

Paper as a medium is dying.

Thanks to the Library's subscriptions to numerous online journal archives, students seldom spend time paging through books for exactly the right article or pay for accessing online resources.

But many other scholars aren't as lucky. To address the problem, Harvard's faculty agreed to publish all its scholarly papers online for free. It's a generous move, and we commend them.

Now it's Penn's turn.

Unfortunately, some faculty members remain unsupportive of such an idea, citing the complications of publishing different types of papers online, such as those with copyrighted images. These issues certainly can and should be resolved on an individual basis, and Penn professors, like those at Harvard, should retain the choice to opt out of publishing individual papers.

However, the benefits of online publishing - and of passing a similar policy at Penn - are clear.

The Internet functions best as a medium for the dissemination of information, and this measure could spread knowledge more quickly and to a wider audience. The ability to search all Penn papers would allow other scholars and students to build upon the research and ideas produced here.

Penn touts itself as a research university. If the intent of research is to increase knowledge, then a move toward making this knowledge available to the public and outside specialists squares perfectly with the University's goals.

With so many giants at Penn, why not give modern-day Newtons some shoulders to stand on?

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