Avskaffa vetenskapliga tidskrifter!?

Gissur tipsar om ett papper med en intressant tes:

‘Therefore, we suggest that abandoning journals altogether, in favor of a library-based scholarly communication system, will ultimately be necessary. This new system will use modern information technology to vastly improve the filter, sort and discovery function of the current journal system.

Det låter ju bra. Men det nya systemet förefaller vara en kollektiv nyttighet. Vem ska ta på sig att tillhandahålla denna? Idag är det ju status att vara redaktör för en vetenskaplig tidskrift. Redaktören kan missbruka sin makt över vad som publiceras, men det brukar snabbt märkas i tidskriftens rykte – som sprids och formas av inflytelserika ekonomer – exempelvis Tyler Cowens funderingar kring ekonomitidskrifter:

The American Economic Review and Journal of Political Economy are the two most important journals.  The former will have more pieces with careful testing and design, but the latter has more conceptually important articles.  I find the JPE more enjoyable.  The Quarterly Journal of Economics has brilliant pieces which can tend toward the unsound or have imperfect execution.  Econometrica, while it remains a clear third or fourth in rank, is less important than it used to be, perhaps because pure theory has declined in influence.  For this same reason, the Rand Journal and Review of Economic Studies, while both still very good journals, have lost their previous luster.