Many scientists remain strongly attached to the ‘look and feel’ of the printed page, and doggedly continue to download and print web documents, rather than reading them on screen. In doing so, they are contributing to perhaps the largest, though inconspicuous, paradigm shift yet to have been brought about by electronic publishing — the shift from centralized printing to electronic distribution and local printing.

So much for visions of the paperless office. Over the past five years paper consumption has jumped 13 per cent in the United States, with 1,000 billion pages pouring out of computer printers annually.

Some publishers, such as the American Physical Society, are considering whether it might not be cheaper to stop printing low-circulation journals, and just let libraries, or whoever wants paper copies, download files and print whole issues themselves.

The US company Presspoint is already exploiting this idea to print short runs of foreign newspapers in hotels and airports. The digital printing presses required, which skip the conventional preparation of individual typeset pages on film, are becoming cheaper and more widely available. For short print runs they are as or more economical than traditional printing — and quality is the same.

But why do researchers download and print? One answer is that, although even the best monitors may look sharp, they are fuzzy, and their resolution is well below the 200 pixels per inch or so that would make reading as comfortable as on paper. Reading on screen is slower and more tiring.

The first of an expected wave of digital reading devices — or electronic books — Nuvomedia's Rocket eBook, went on sale before Christmas at $499. Each can hold the equivalent of a dozen novels, and offers touch sensitive, high-resolution screens.

The content of e-books will initially be restricted to special encrypted book titles downloaded from the web. But Nuvomedia, which has agreements with several major publishers, is looking at other markets. “We definitely have plans to pursue journals,” says Nuvomedia's Robert Carter.

If Nuvomedia's vision of scientists carrying their personal libraries around with them seems far fetched, that of E Ink, a company born at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, appears almost science fiction. E Ink has invented an electrophoretic ink of microscopic coloured capsules that change colour when a tiny electric current is passed through them (see Nature 394, 253-255; 1998). Coat the ink onto paper, plug the sheet into a computer, and the sheet can produce high resolution images — black and white at present — that stay when the current is switched off.

Russ Wilcox, E Inks' vice-president, claims the ink could be used to develop screens with four times the resolution of existing screens. The company plans to create paper books that could display any electronic text. Might researchers soon be able to download their copy of Nature and carry it with them on the train? “Absolutely,” says Wilcox. “Electronic ink's light weight and low power draw make it ideal for such portable applications.”