Chapter 11: Reading
Willinsky includes a dialogue about reading print texts and reading the screen; he acknowledges both the benefits and the difficulties of reading texts in a digital format. However, he stops a bit short when he neglects to address any relevant scholarship by authors like James Bolter, Walter Ong, or George Landow, to name of few.
He specifically states that digital articles provide the following benefits:
- articles are easier to search (14)
- citations and quotations are easier to move into new scholarship (14)
- linked information provides context, additional information about the topic, and reference lists (155)
- articles and images are in color (156), though he does not mention other multi-modal aspects of the Internet, like sound files, for example
- conversations in chat rooms, e-mail, and listservs that offer additional sites of dialogue about new research
- the ability to quickly check where and how many times an article has been cited.
Willinsky then recommends more research in the field of digital literacy. The first step on the part of a computer user, he claims, is to “resist the temptation to click-and-print” (155). Digital literacy is a new skill that needs to be fostered and utilized in order to push open access on the Internet.
Again, one question that arises out of Willinsky’s argument for digital text is why he relied on print to share his scholarship. Willinsky does not ignore this question, but neither does he adequately answer it. He explains that the printed book is not open access; however, “I have chosen to go with this form because the book remains the medium that best serves the development of a wide-ranging and thoroughgoing treatment of an issue in a single sustained piece of writing” (xv). With this explanation he hopes to have ended the conversation. However, to his credit, The Access Principle, deals specifically with the publication of journal articles and not books.