Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 228.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
[1] From: Stephen Miller <Stephen.Miller@assoc.oeaw.ac.at> (19)
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
[2] From: Matt Kirschenbaum <mk235@umail.umd.edu> (17)
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
[3] From: BODARD Gabriel <gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk> (37)
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 06:04:54 +0100
From: Stephen Miller <Stephen.Miller@assoc.oeaw.ac.at>
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 09:36:23 +0100
> From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
> >
>I trust Professor Corre realizes that putting his publications entirely on
>the WEB means that they may disappear without a trace in a few years.
A point which is further developed in:
"Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in
the Digital Age"
by Clifford A. Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information
ARL Bimonthly Report 226 / February 2003
http://www.arl.org/newsltr/226/ir.html
Stephen Miller
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Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy Corpus
Sonnenfelsgasse 19/8, A-1010 Wien, Austria.
Tel. +43-1-51581-2280 Fax +43-1-51581-2339
WWW http://www.oeaw.ac.at/~litgeb/
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--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 06:06:16 +0100
From: Matt Kirschenbaum <mk235@umail.umd.edu>
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 09:36:23 +0100
> From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
> >
> I trust Professor Corre realizes that putting his publications entirely on
> the WEB means that they may disappear without a trace in a few years.
Why? Because the Web, being virtual, is a volatile swirl of ephemera?
Some kind of gaseous cloud, a self-consuming cyber-super nebula?
Nonsense.
The Web is not a black box, and preservation is ultimately a social
rather than a technological issue. If the Professor keeps his work on an
institutionally stable server and retains his own copies besides, not to
mention availing himself of the services of OCLC PURL
<http://www.purl.org/> his publications are no more in danger of
disappearing than they are when sent to the bowels of a research library
in a bound and printed journal.
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum_____________________________
_______________________http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 06:07:06 +0100
From: BODARD Gabriel <gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 17.223 critical reflections on publishing
> From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
> I trust Professor Corre realizes that putting his publications entirely on
> the WEB means that they may disappear without a trace in a few years.
This is rather an alarmist statement (and I suspect its bald phrasing is
deliberate and if not tongue-in-cheek then at least provocative--
however, at risk of eating a worm, I'll bite on this one ;-)
If you put an article or a book up on the web with a random ISP or on a
personal home page, and then never look at it again, don't update it,
archive it, or otherwise make an effort to ensure its longevity, then
sure, it may well disappear without trace in a few years. But this is
the e-publishing equivalent of printing out your article and leaving a
few copies lying around in the common room and on bulletin boards in the
library for people to read. Again, it will disappear from sight and
memory pretty soon. (I don't know if this is what it is implied Prof
Corre is doing?)
Most e-publishing sites (like the Stoa.org, for example) make solid
provision to keep their publications in a standard, software independent
format, archived in a variety of forms and available in the long term.
There are also archiving services which serve a function analogous to
that of the library in keeping a local copy of the publication and
therefore making it much less likely to disappear as a result of one
server or company breaking down or folding, or a platform or software
system becoming obsolete, etc.
Anyone who publishes on the web or in electronic format generally should
be aware of such issues, and then it is unlikely that their work will
disappear any time soon. But you all know that...
Cheers,
---------------------------------------
Gabriel BODARD
Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
Email: gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 78 48 16 62
Fax: +44 (0)20 78 48 29 80
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