“Let the old men read new books; you read the journals and the old books.”
Sir William Osler (1849-1919)1
Most print publications are digitally evolving from a history of printed versions to both print and digital or digital-only. The MSMA Board of Trustees recently advised the Publications Committee, which oversees the production of this Journal, that the last regular print issue will occur with the January/February issue and afterwards the Journal will be produced in a digital-only format with the possibility of special printed issues. The reason stated is a cost-saving measure to eliminate the expense of the Journal’s printing and mailing. The Board has expressed a full commitment to producing the Journal bimonthly in a high-quality digital format for the foreseeable future.
Your editor, who has no vote in the matter, is saddened by the decision to cease print publication, agreeing with most publishing experts that a print and digital version is what readers now want, rather than a digital-only version.2–5 In the end, however, your editor is deeply grateful for the continued support of the Journal in its digital format and asserts your Journal is an essential, almost existential, benefit for the state’s physicians. It must persist. As Sir William Osler said in 1895, old books and journals are the essential reading material for serious physicians.1 Your Journal will persist and thrive beyond the end of its paper printing.
This medical journal has been published in a printed format as a membership benefit of the association for more than a century, with the roots of the printed journal going back further, to 1897 (and even decades before that in printed annual Transactions). Back in May 1899, JMSMA Editor Hugh H. Haralson, MD, appropriately called the Journal a “family affair” of Mississippi physicians: “I have been elected editor and manager of the Journal and again I do appeal to the members of the association to do their part toward making the paper a success, especially do I urge you to remember that ours is a family affair and needs constant care and attention.” He further entreated his readers to engage with the Journal and send it the “news of the doctors” and write accounts of their “cares and such matters as may interest the profession.”6 This family affair of Mississippi physicians will continue, and your engagement with your Journal must also continue as it journeys forward in its digital-only format.
The Journal is the collective voice of Mississippi physicians, from a scientific and societal perspective. The printed Journal and our Component Society gatherings are the most tangible expressions and benefits of MSMA membership. Many of the other benefits of membership as listed by our MSMA seem less present and less important to our members and their practices. Over the last century, this printed Journal has been seen as a primary benefit of membership, each issue hanging around for months on a doctor’s desk or bookshelf or in the clinic lobby, read by many others than the member physician, providing both a presence and a discernible connection to the medical community across the state.
Like many of the older generation, I do not welcome the death of print as a medium. Engaging with a book or journal involves the physical touch of printed paper and your fingers turning pages. I agree with the brilliant American philosopher Mortimer Adler who, in lecturing and writing upon “how to read a book,” encouraged readers to “write between the lines” because to mark up a book or journal with one’s thoughts in conversation with the author is the “most efficient” mode of reading. He contended that “marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love.”7 This type of concentrated reading will be more difficult with a digital page. Further, the tangibility of print media gives a sense of authenticity and permanence. In 1909 Sir William Osler suggested that medical journals “should be kept and filed for reference.”8 Even in today’s sophisticated digital age, is there not a degree of satisfaction and ease in reaching for a past edition of our printed Journal and flipping through it to re-read a certain article?
Admittedly, few people under 30 read printed magazines and books anymore and many of our younger generation consider a printed journal anachronistic and even absurd. “It’s long overdue to be digital-only,” many of our younger members may assert, while our older members will mourn with me the end of the printed journal. The question now for our Publications Committee and our MSMA is how can we effectively reach our physician readers of all generations in a digital-only format as we have successfully done in our printed format? Other magazines, newspapers, and journals have transitioned to all-digital versions as their readership and advertising revenue fell. And some of those even decided that the shift to digital-only was not the right solution in the end and returned to both printed and digital options (The newspaper The Times-Picayune, Newsweek magazine, and the comic journal The Onion come to mind).9–11
Your MSMA Committee on Publications is committed to publishing high quality scientific studies, editorials, and special interest articles for the benefit of its readers, but your Journal must be read to have meaning and value. Readership of most printed publications is reckoned at three readers for every printed copy. I know my own attraction to membership in the MSMA occurred when, as a medical student, I would read copies of the Journal lying on my physician father’s desk. Will the Journal readership remain as strong in the digital-only format? Certainly, that is our mission as a publication, and in our digital format, there are avenues to find not only all of our own member readers but also a world of other interested readers. Your MSMA will explore strategies to reach these audiences! Don’t hesitate to give us your thoughts on how your editors and the Publications Committee can maximize this publication. Remember, your Journal is and always will be a family affair!
Contact me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com. — Lucius M. Lampton, MD, Editor