Electronic publishing is a great boon to certain sections of the publishing industry, and to the public. Catalogs and telephone directories need constant updating. Real-time text-based news feeds with internal links put a wealth of information at a person’s fingertips. Specialized articles generated outside of Academe, which would even a few decades ago have remained in manuscript, unread and unnoticed, can reach a wide audience through the Internet.
There are problems, however, with relying on an essentially ephemeral medium to be the repository of timeless knowledge.
