Scholarly Communication Demands and Realisation

In his later work on hypertext Landow (2006) reconsiders some of these ideas in the light of the shift to a "network structure of hypertext" as opposed to what Landow describes as the "axial structure of electronic books and scholarly books with foot – or endnotes". The latter format may suit tradition but the possibilities of the former only become obvious where initial experiments in multi-modal delivery are already taking place such the International Union of Crystallography (n.d.) where traditional html and pdf full text of articles are available alongside detailed descriptions of experiment (design, results and methods of analysis) and 2D and 3D representations of chemical structures are accessible by clicking chemical names in the (html) text. This combination of features allows readers of the journals to have a useful multi-modal experience where visual and specialist knowledge is valued and presented with equal status to the full text. As a result, readers get a richer and fuller learning experience than if they were to look at the text alone.

Clearly 3D modeling of chemical compounds will not be essential to all forms of electronic scholarly communication but each discipline and specialist area of scholarly work will have certain key modes of communication associated with it. This tailorable blend of key modes should be incorporated into scholarly journals and communications as those communications require. For instance, media and film studies journals might be expected to include multimedia clips, images and links to appropriate resources; medical journals are frequently highly illustrated but use of animated 3D views, access to click through to full detailed results of clinical research and RSS feeds of related studies might be appropriate enhancements or integrated elements to the full text.