I am sitting here thinking about how I think about journals - I think of them as inherently participatory spaces, where part of your "dues" as an active member of the community is that you read/write article reviews for editors, participate by writing book reviews when they're needed, review conference panel submissions and/or conference papers when asked, et cetera.
Elijah, I like the way you think about journals -- this is also how I think about them, but I find that many people who aren't as involved (in terms of editing, conference-presenting, research-writing) don't always get that (of course I come from a discipline that tends to focus more on pedagogy and less on research...and whose members are often teaching far more than they are researching).
Yes, there is a bit of a possible disconnect there that needs to be avoided. Having better mentors seems to help folks quite a lot. Being able to say that "I do these things out of respect for my colleagues and as a way to honor this area in which I work" is quite a bit different than saying "I do this because I need to publish an article and three book reviews to get a job". Joy is important in life. I for one have a hard time doing things for money. Service work that I would otherwise find gratifying is completely smothering and stultifying once the almighty dollar becomes involved. Even so, I think we all see the need for folks to eat.
There are several journal/zine/etc editors on this list; most of the ones that I've come in contact with are *delighted* to receive offers of free labor from ze community.
Absolutely! But we are, I should note (not that you implied otherwise, but still noteworthy) careful to make sure that this free labor ends up accruing some kind of value to the laborer, whether that's a cv line, experience with a particular kind of editing or production, or extended opportunities to network with senior scholars in the field.
Yes, I decided that if I didn't make the point someone would say it more clearly than I might have :) and you did!
exigency and use of the journals is changes
[Doug fires his typist...oh wait, this isn't a MOO]
But don't you wish it were? :) I miss scrabble with mday et al...
May a thousand flowers bloom!
Yes! And I think that is one of the ways that the value of online publications can grow -- develop and sustain good venues until they become part of the academic culture of each discipline they represent (or of several disciplines, in the case of interdisciplinary journals, which would be preferable, but I think our historical moment is currently privileging disciplinarity...hopefully that will begin to shift soon).
I think you're exactly right about disciplinarity being privileged, at least in the surface-level sense... in the deeper sense I think that many do see the reasons behind multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinarity and are willing to take advantage of those freedoms where they may.... --elijah