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Back in the day, one wrote an essay or a review essay about topics one found interesting, typed it neatly, and mailed it off to various journals.
After about two years, the piece was either retired as hopelessly stale or published in a journal where fourteen people read it and seven of them found it interesting.
Because one wasn’t employed in academia, this did nothing to advance one’s career.
Eventually one quit doing that and only wrote pieces when asked, which lengthened the resume admirably, albeit still to no longer-term financial advantage.
Now all of us can write the piece in the morning and have it online by the evening. The same fourteen people read it, seven of whom find it interesting. And usually we get paid about the same amount as before, namely, zero.
But if one of the fourteen cites the piece in a footnote with URL, at least the one person who finds the footnote interesting doesn’t have to spend years looking for the journal or inveigling the editor or author for a copy. (As I can testify from many months of trying to get the catalogue of the Estonian Kumu Museum show of art from the Finno-Ugrian republics, acquiring printed copies of things can still be an arduous and largely hopelessly enterprise.)
After about two years, the piece was either retired as hopelessly stale or published in a journal where fourteen people read it and seven of them found it interesting.
Because one wasn’t employed in academia, this did nothing to advance one’s career.
Eventually one quit doing that and only wrote pieces when asked, which lengthened the resume admirably, albeit still to no longer-term financial advantage.
Now all of us can write the piece in the morning and have it online by the evening. The same fourteen people read it, seven of whom find it interesting. And usually we get paid about the same amount as before, namely, zero.
But if one of the fourteen cites the piece in a footnote with URL, at least the one person who finds the footnote interesting doesn’t have to spend years looking for the journal or inveigling the editor or author for a copy. (As I can testify from many months of trying to get the catalogue of the Estonian Kumu Museum show of art from the Finno-Ugrian republics, acquiring printed copies of things can still be an arduous and largely hopelessly enterprise.)
