Someone needs to upgrade from dial-up...... And get off their ridiculously high horse. - Wladimir Labeikovsky from Bookmarklet

and learn about print on demand. - Pedro Beltrao

Liking the comments rather than the letter, obviously :-) I guess they're entitled to their (ridiculous, wrong-headed, irrelevant) opinion. - Neil Saunders

The only thing I can identify with is this act of discovering while browsing. There is no very good equivalent online for this (yet) - Pedro Beltrao

The quality comment is what kills me. As if somehow cellulose and ink enhance the quality of the peer review... - Wladimir Labeikovsky

All his points are killing me: You want to browse during breakfast? Has the guy ever heard of a "browser"? Been reading my news et al. during breakfast for the last 10 years. Laptops FTW! And yes, Wladimir: how does cellulose and ink make a journal any better, I wonder? I think we should get together and write a pointed reply to Nature! - Björn Brembs

Wow, Bjorn, feel free to include my name on the letter, but I wonder if it's worth the bother. It's not like we'd even have any common ground to discuss. - Mr. Gunn

@Mr. Gunn: Worth smorth. Consider the fun! :-) - Björn Brembs

It would be fun! - Mr. Gunn

Only problem may be that the letter which is the most fun writing won't be the one getting published, lol :-) - Björn Brembs

I've had a letter published in the print edition. I know to what degree those things are edited before they hit the page. - Mr. Gunn

'Until Nature comes up with a new business model, to read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment' - Andrew Spong

@Mr. Gunn: So you'd think "upgrade from dial-up" and "ridiculously high horse" would be edited out? :-) That cracked me up :-) - Björn Brembs

Here's my first draft: http://etherpad.com/FZ2N9FKECI - Björn Brembs

As for random browsing, wikis have it by default, and it's the outcome of many a search on a journal's site or on other parts of the web. - Daniel Mietchen

Despite the fact that printed journals contribute only a small fraction of the total amount of paper I think it is a question of mind set and awareness. Why get hundreds of printed pages of a journal if you only skim through a small part of it and read only a tiny part at all? That's quite a waste of resources (paper, ink, energy for production and transportation). Yes, paper consumption has increased (http://is.gd/1lrnj and http://is.gd/1lroG) despite the growing availability of digital media - but this is again a question of awareness and habits that can be changed. Maybe not everybody is nerdy enough to have breakfast while reading papers on the laptop, but hopefully e-book reader fill the gap here. - Konrad Förstner

One more on random browsing: http://search.twitter.com/search... . - Daniel Mietchen

Yes, Konrad. See also http://ff.im/4GRMM. - Daniel Mietchen

After the fall of Genset in 2006, they started to put their whole library in the garbage. I've tried to save a part of the journals (see this picture http://www.flickr.com/photos... ). I sent some e-mails to the local libraries, to the centers of research, etc... Nobody asked for those journals and at the end, all those books ended into the bin. - Pierre Lindenbaum

@Pierre - Really a shame, maybe try next time bookcrossing.com or freecycle.org at least for the books. I had a similar experience when I wanted to donate some books in quite good shape to the local library. They didn't take them for whatever reason. - Konrad Förstner

That's pretty good, Björn, but I wouldn't even concede the point about discovery. I think discovery through re-sharing of bookmarks (connotea/citeulike/Mendeley(soon)) and through article use stats (Mendeley, PLoS) works better than randomly paging through a magazine. - Mr. Gunn

@Mr. Gunn, I don't know about that. We pick topics and people tend to be somewhat close to what interest us. I can't understand half of what is in a regular issue of Nature but I guess that if I ever browsed it in print I would spend more time on articles that I would never even look at the abstract. I am not even saying that one way is better than the other .. just that my online browsing habits are much more focused than would be if I had to check paper versions. - Pedro Beltrao

Yeah, I'm definitely more focused online, but the serendipity of print limits you to that one article, whereas recommendation online can come from the whole body of work. Maybe we need a good way to browse recommendations? - Mr. Gunn

Is there an analogy about paging through a set of recommendations from trusted people rather than through someone (the editors) with whom you have no direct connection? - Cameron Neylon

I page through F1000 listings, FF bookmarks (citeUlike and connotea) from others, and my broad search terms. Would that count? My subjective impression is that this leads to a broader sample of the literature than if I were just browsing the hip journals. But it certainly also feels less leisurely and comfy :-) - Björn Brembs

Great conversation. I am a strong believer that social bookmarking and networking tools can do a better job of nudging serendipity along than flipping through a paper journal. Use of these tools increases the chances of coming across relevant discoveries in adjacent fields. (shameless plug: http://2collab.com/ is designed with this goal in mind.) That said, my former position at Lulu.com left me a firm believer that print-on-demand is the way to go whenever print is prefered. - Michael Habib

"the proportion of reading by U.S. science faculty from browsing decreased in recent years, replaced by other means of learning about articles that are read. While the proportion of readings decreased over the years, however, that number of readings found by browsing remains about the same: 88 readings in 1977 and 95 in 2005. Readings from searches increased from 17 to 78 readings between these two years." - Tab. 1 in http://www.dlib.org/dlib... . - Daniel Mietchen

"the quality of these prestigious journals could gradually decline to the standard of many of today's web-only journals." What a flippiant remark, as above how does the medium of information transfer effect the quality of the content. What a dinausaur, lets start a charitiable fund to buy them an iphone - although will will have to advertise this via a telegram - Frank

And indeed given some effort they might actually rise to the standard of several of today's web-only journals, one can at least hope... - Cameron Neylon

I'll play devil's advocate here. My first reaction was rather like those above, but there's room for all, no? I liked getting American Scientist in print, though have now opted for online. But there are places laptops aren't very practical. Breakfast isn't one. I don't want my serendipity forced on me, either, cf Pedro. Comment about quality might have to do with the lower cost barrier for a new journal to enter web-only vs print, but didn't like idea that quality for established journals would decline! - Heather

From a practical standpoint I find that when I'm reading something in print, my mindset is different and I have a longer attention span and can actually get through a long article without realizing there's something else I need to look at or do online. I think there is still a place for printed journals, but more for reviews or 'popular' science such as GEN or the Scientist. If it's a primary research paper you really need to read for your work or research, I think the media doesn't matter. - Mary Canady