ents. However the format of individual documents are less of a concern now than they once were since most standard wordprocessor application packages provide file conversion filters to enable users to convert all the major document formats. Unfortunately, not all wordprocessor packages are created equal and some do a better job of converting alien file formats than others. [18] Stephen Hilliard (1995) provides a short, whimsical look at some of the issues surrounding electronic publication. [19] The EJS statistics program keeps monthly totals of the number of people viewing the journal, and the number of people viewing each issue. Because of the way the log files are set up these are only estimates. However our program is designed to underestimate access to the EJS. [20] de Kerckhove's writing is classic and I just can't resist quoting some of his material to illustrate my point. Speaking about the "wiring" of society and some of the competing models for the delivery of networked services, de Kerckhove concludes that...Ideally people will be able to choose - and pay for - how much bandwidth and how many bits (that is, units of information per second) they need, at any time, in the course of their communication. This is called the "pay-per-bit" or "bandwidth-on-demand" marketing that appeals to the more enlightened critics as the most democratic and the most economically efficient way of wiring the country (de Kerckhove, 1995: 57: Italics added)Just what this fellows thought processeses were when he concluded that enlightened critics prefer pay-per view is unknown and probably unfathomable. At the very least, his comments miss a classic discussion of these issues by Vincent Mosco in 1989. On the "nature" of the internet, de Kerckove suggests that what everyone else would think of as network of computers, or an information highway, isn't really. He suggests that "The internet is really a brain, a collective, living brain clicking as you r...
