Lawrence Ferlinghetti was arrested and later acquitted on obscenity charges when he published Allen Ginsberg's Howl in 1956 as founder of San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore. Later he spoke of literature: "The future of publishing lies with the small and medium presses". Ten years later John Fowles wrote in The Magus:  "I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope - an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all".

These two quotes can provide inspiration for those engaging and interested in the exciting frontiers of online academic publishing through blogs and other informal media. The pressures of the symbiotic relationship between blogging and publishing have forced mainstream media to offer olive branches to the online citizenry. Journalism has tipped first, academia will follow.