Colleagues elsewhere, he says, are proving to be equally helpful. The answer is yes. Economics Bulletin started in January and has published only one paper so far. A directory on its Web site lists 80 registered users around the world. Another example cited by Mr. Johnson is the Berkeley Electronic Press, which started publishing eight online journals in business and economics in December.
Access is free.
Greg Tananbaum, the company's vice president for marketing, says that the press does not keep track of the number of different readers. They get the wheels of change turning. But academic support is not without reservation. My subject, like so many others, is simply being swept away in a tsunami of them. The flow of clear information is now swamped by the muddy water from new journals that no one reads.