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This article appeared in the Spring 2001 edition of Short Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training. It was written by Tim Albert.

Journals 'will have to be a pleasure to read'

A major shift in the role - and style - of medical journals is about to take place, according to two senior BMJ editors.

The introduction of electronic publishing has meant that medical journals can now separate the validation and communication functions.

'Our judgment is that journals whose main contribution is peer review and distribution of research will disappear…', write Richard Smith and Tony Delamothe.

'The remaining 15 per cent of biomedical journals can survive if they do something valuable - something, by the iron laws of economics, that people will pay them more to do than it costs the journals to do…'

In this new world journals will present selected research in an exciting way, encourage debate and 'entertain the customer'.

'If journals cannot add value then they will die, which is right and proper,' say Smith and Delamothe. 'But if reading them can be a pleasure not a chore then they can survive'.

Delamothe T, Smith R, PubMed Central: creating an Aladdin's cave of ideas. BMJ 322; 1-2