Dindoruk	Johnson

Executive Editors of SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering alternate writing the Executive Summary. This issue's summary is by Alan Johnson.

I wonder whether you are reading this editorial in the mailed hard-copy version or online? I hadn’t given this subject much thought recently until I attended this year’s Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in San Antonio, Texas, where I remembered that there had been a plan to consider phasing out the print version of SPEREE once there was sufficient uptake of the online publication. The obvious benefits would be a savings in printing costs and an environmental impact, while the online version offers potential additional advantages such as online discussion of papers and links to other relevant material.

As things stand, there is no need for an immediate panic. At present, only around 15% of subscribers have elected to receive the online journal exclusively, and there are no immediate plans to phase out the print version until this percentage becomes significantly higher.

When I recalled the plan to eliminate the printed journal, my initial reaction was a slight panic. I have been around the industry rather longer than online journals. Deep down, I prefer the feel of a magazine I can carry with me, read while travelling, and file on the shelf in my office for future reference. A printed hard copy of a paper from the online journal just doesn’t feel the same and is easily mislaid.

In an earlier existence, I had my own office with plenty of shelving where I could store my collection of industry literature for easy reference. But now, alas, in these forward-looking days of open-plan “paperless” offices, I now keep my journals on a shelf at home. I may carry the latest edition of SPEREE in my briefcase to look at when I get a chance, but if I want to look up a paper in a past edition, I have to wait until I get back from the office. If the paper I want is from a recent publication, to save time, I now find myself going to SPE.org and searching the back issues of SPEREE’s online editions, which date back to December 2004. (To do this: on SPE.org, go to the Technical Resources tab, then SPE Technical Journals and SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering, and click in the Access Online Journal box).

Another useful feature of the online journal arises from the fact that I live in the U.K. Thanks to the speed of surface mail, I had yet to receive my printed copy of the October edition by early November, but I had already had the chance to look at the online version and skim through some of the papers.

So, as you can see, in spite of my initial prejudices and misgivings, I am already starting to make use of the online version of the journal.

In fact, once you look at it, the online journal does offer a number of significant features that are not available in the print version:

• PDF versions of each paper found in the print version.
• In addition to the PDF, a separate References link provides online access to many of the references included in each paper.
• Free retrieval of papers from back issues of the journal (1986–present).
• Access to discipline-related SPE conference papers (usually from the past 3 to 4 months).
• Keyword topic searches.
• An opportunity to participate in online discussions of the journal papers.

As far as SPEREE is concerned, so far there has been no uptake of the discussion forum. This should be a valuable extension of the publication process, allowing you to give feedback and discuss elements of published papers. The possibility to identify further improvements and extensions of the methods and technologies presented in these papers offers the means to potentially speed up the technical advances in our individual discipline areas and in the industry in general.

In any case, the tool is there, and it is up to you, the readers, to make best use of it. Your feedback would be most welcome:

• Do you have any suggestions as to how the online journal and, in particular, the discussion forums could be improved, ideally to stimulate more discussion?
• If you have a strong preference, as I do (or perhaps did), for the print version of the journal, how would you feel if it were to disappear?

This is our journal. New technologies are providing the opportunity for us to make it better, more relevant, and more useful in our daily work; all it takes is for you to let us know what you think and what you would like to see. You can do this by writing to journals@spe.org and indicating SPEREE (marked for my attention) in the subject line.