become really cheap. Nevertheless, the
functions of traditional publishing will certainly have to be thoroughly
redefined in relation to the development of electronic publishing and its
considerable prospects, beginning with the low costs and the quick access to
documents.

The Web has developed more and more interaction between the printed document and
the electronic document, to such an extent that it becomes difficult to
establish a frontier between the two supports, and it will probably no longer be
necessary to make a distinction between them in the future. Most of the recent
print media already stem from an electronic version on a word processor, a
spreadsheet or a database. More and more documents are "only" electronic.
Because of the development of digital libraries, there are fewer documents
available in print. Those documents existing only in a print version can easily
be scanned if necessary.

In his article The Future of Publishing, Kushal Dave, an avid computer and modem
user and a high school freshman, stated:

"[...] the fully electronic document is coming into its own, thanks to the many
benefits it provides. The cost is a magnitude lower than paper, while the speed
is much higher. Michael Hart is the executive director of Project Gutenberg
[...]. In an electronic mail dialogue, he cited the example of Lewis Caroll's
Alice in Wonderland. Not taking into account the cost of a computer (as little
as $1000) since most people have them anyway, a copy of the book on floppy might
cost a dollar. There is also no time spent publishing the document, once it's in
e-text (electronic text) form it can be gotten almost instantly. On the other
hand the cheapest possible paper copy of the book would be $5 because of the
cost of printing, and printing would also delay its availability to the public.
Electronic documents also have a better availability, since they can be
reproduced infinitely and do not require leaving your house, thanks to low-cost
modems. Furthermore, it is now possible to read Associated Press Reports as they
are released, not in the next morning's paper, and you don't even have to pay
the 25 cents. Cost, speed, and availability are just some of the compelling
arguments for electronic publishing instead of paper.

Another advantage of electronic publishing is all the new possibilities it
provides. Just about anybody can electronically publish anything. [...] Karin L.
Trgovac, director of communicatio