Web capabilities impose the need to be able to reconstitute the older material to incorporate new capabilities, such as the better display of tabular data or the incorporation of citations to the work. This can only be done if the original material is designed for updating. Such a design facilitates robust archiving as well. It is now nearly as cheap to archive electronic material in a form which is publicly available as it is to simply store it on tape. Older material will be much more accessible than was previously the case.
Electronic information knows no boundaries.
Effective interconnections can work as well across discipline boundaries as they do across national boundaries. A provocative thought is that intensely scholarly material can, in principle, be as accessible to school children as it is to the advanced researcher. There is some potential for misunderstanding and even mischief. On the Web, scoundrels can dress up pseudoscience to the point where the general public may not be able to differentiate it from well founded science. Academics will have to consider that they are no longer just writing for their most learned colleagues.