<<In a message dated 1/6/2009 5:55:30 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm writes:

Another issue is the cyclical nature of academic research. It's perfectly possible for a microfield to spring 25 peer reviewed papers in a decade and then pass out of fashion or have all the accessible results exhausted. Some of these microfields will get a book written about them, some will not. All are of encyclopedic interest.>>

I suppose that depends on what you consider to be "encyclopedic". If 25 people in the world are interested in it, does that make it encyclopedic? What is the cutoff? If you're stating that anything which can be researched in some source, is encyclopedic, then sure.

However I think most people would say that we're interested in documenting the important things. Not every size and shape of every screw ever created.

25 papers in a decade sounds a bit small by the way

Will Johnson

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