Scholarly communication normally leads to some type of formal
publication (making public) results, findings, observations, and
views arising from the researcher's work. Traditionally these
have taken the form of printed material. Printed or written
documentation can be based on a paper product or on media such as
microfiche, microfilm, audio-visual media, multimedia and machine-readable
digital information. Libraries aim to acquire, register and store
printed and other media of this formal type, increasingly as net-based
electronic products, thereby providing scholars with access to
past work (or a portion of it).
The advantages of the formal printed channels are that:
1. Information can be spread to a widely scattered group of
readers;
2. Detailed information, such as descriptions of methods, tables,
diagrams, results etc, can easily be given;
3. Printed documents contain information which can be critically
examined and verified;
4. The documents can easily be referred to, as and when required;
5. Published documents provide a means for establishing the
"priority" of academic work, and thereby contribute to
establishing academic merit for the author(s).
The structure of the published literature is today well-organised
into different kinds of primary publications and secondary
publications.