RLG's Ariel system allows any printed material to be scanned directly as a page image, then stored, transmitted over the Internet, and received for printing at the target site. Only fuller experience will enable institutions to analyze cost implications balancing collection development with resource sharing. When the primary artifact is itself electronic the real revolution will begin. Electronic texts can remove the limitations of print on paper. They can be dynamic and mutable, and are potentially eminently interactive.
Experiments are already under way creating textbooks on demand out of available online materials.
But the transition to alternative types of scholarly communication will be not be easy. Electronic methods of disseminating information are at least as different in kind from print as print is from manual copying, and any particular technology is joined to a set of economic and legal arrangements appropriate to it. Difficult issues will have to be faced in a number of areas. Any new system will have to convince scholarly and institutional leaders that it is adequately peer reviewed and reliable. Who will pay and how much are still unanswerable questions.