Digital Authoring, Electronic Scholarship, and Libraries: From Walled Garden to Wilderness

In the Age of Print, publishing was like a walled garden—authors gained admission if others (editorial boards, peer reviewers) judged their work to be worthy. If not, authors were kept outside and only then considered self-publishing, which was not considered very respectable. In the Digital Age, those walls are crumbling, and the garden becomes a wilderness. Print publishers see their economies of scale erode, and self-publishing is losing its stigma. Today, librarians will not necessarily find the best new scholar ship laid out in an orderly manner. Some of the most exciting and innovative scholarship being done today, especially