I would absolutely love it if in my lifetime somehow all papers/articles/
reviews were on the Web (diagrams and all) and you could read the whole
thing, AND, the references in the paper.... (y'know like, (Brown, 1990))
were all LINKS, and you could immediately click on it and read THAT
paper.
'Problem with this system is that it requires the cooperation of many
different journals. Currently, journals like _Cell_, _Neuron_, _Science_,
_Nature_, all have their papers online for a fee. But they don't have
links to their references, since many of them are from different journals.
Plus, if all journals were on the Web, subscriptions would probably go
down, because any terminal is accessible by any number of people. But
then, even hard copy journals have a way of going from desk to desk.
I can't think of all the pros and cons as to why this hasn't been
done yet. The technology is certainly there. I'm curious if someone
is working on this, or knows of an attempt to build such a system.
D. Vichugsananon
vichugsa at uiuc.edu
