The digital revolution in scientific publishing is now under way,
but the endpoint is far from clear. One question is
especially problematic: Who will pay for the electronic
publication of journals? A recent editorial in Science
embraced the pay-per-view model that predominates among
commercial journal publishers. Thomas J. Walker endorses an
alternative model more suited to many scholarly societies: a
system funded by authors and libraries with a free,
searchable archive of research results available on the
Internet.