Enhancing electronic access to technical information has been identified as one of the most important goals of the IEEE. I have witnessed the efforts at the IEEE such as Spectrum On-line, OPeRA and Xplore. I believe that the logical future lies in the micropayment system.
With a micropayment system, IEEE publications could be sold paper-by-paper at low cost, and be charged to the membership account if the member does not belong to certain societies, and be payable annually at the membership renewal time. Non-members may be accommodated in partnership with ClickBank, MilliCent or PayPal.
There have been numerous micropayment systems on the Internet such as CyberCash Coin, CyberGold, DigiCash, First Virtual, MilliCent, NetCash, etc. However, they offer fragmented approach, and many of them have failed. I think that the IEEE may have an opportunity to literally set standards on the micropayment system.
FYI, I proposed such a system to the IEEE about 6 years ago, along with the "Create New Knowledge or Perish" paradigm instead of "Publish or Perish"...
