Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 448.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 06:59:04 +0000
From: mhayward <mhayward@grove.iup.edu>
Subject: RE: 14.0437 WWW characteristics compiled
Some years back I wrote a note to myself on why the WWW won't
function as well as many people figured it would. I actually said, as
the WWW was "intended" to operate, but I am not sure intention has much to
do with things. My way of thinking was that quanta of information don't
do very much for us (as individuals or as members of a discipline). What
counts is how that information is put together, the basic paradigms that
underlie our ways of looking at the world. Maybe I am missing something:
is there evidence that the amount of information available on the Web
has led to a paradigm shift (in a Kuhnsian sense) in any major discipline?
I don't think it has in my own (literary studies), where the information on
the Web has given scholars certain advantages in availability of texts,
ease of research, and so on, but has not jumped us into new ways of
thinking about literature.
But you've got to remember--this is from a guy who, when a friend of his
daughter said about 8 years ago he'd like to have a service where people
could put their resumes on line and employers could list jobs, replied
Oh, I doubt if that will work. The Internet is really only for educational
uses . . . (I hope he had the sense not to listen to me.)
Malcolm Hayward
Malcolm Hayward
Department of English
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
mhayward@grove.iup.edu
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