Steve wrote (well, first me then him, yuck, grammar!):
> >Anyone planning
> >to make changes to the content of ejournal papers must surely have a very
> >strong policy on how this is to be done, perhaps parallel to the concept of
> >new editions of monographs. One of the virtues of publishing should
> >surely be some sort of "fixing" of the version, compared to the private
> >copies on personal web sites which may have been updated significantly.
>
> This seems to be missing the point of the Internet: it isn't there to
> 'parallel' print models, it is quite distinct. The idea of 'fixing' things
> on the Internet is alien to this new form. This is the source of the
> problem, I agree.
Well, I'm not sure there is a "point to the Internet", and I don't think
the need to "fix" for scholarship is because of a need to parallel print
models. I've been a software developer working at a distance with other
developers, and understand the nature of the tangles you can get into
debating at loggerheads because both parties are using different versions
of a text (eg source programme, or eg scholarly article) without
realising it. You have to manage version control, and the same becomes
true if articles become mutable. I'm not saying articles should never
change, but if they do it must be clear what is changed and preferably
the original should be preserved. Fixing in some form provides the rock
on which scholarship is based, as someone earlier in this thread
suggested.
> I know that for scholarly works this goes against the grain, but speed is
> one of the new dynamics of the Internet, and it would be surprising if it
> didn't have an effect. Take one example. If it is important for authors to
> publish quickly, presumably they will develop ways of writing more quickly.
> One way to do this: use the hypertext link. We are bound eventually to begin
> writing in new ways. What is being archived then?
I believe our paradigms are becoming unravelled, and we can no more
predict the future shape of e-scholarship than the inventors of the
horseless carriage could predict the F-1 racing car. The notions just
about hold water, and are useful enough to give us some ideas and to
expose some problems. We need lots more debate and argument on aspects of
this and its implications for libraries.
> Ah, but what if the 'new' information is contained within the links? It's
> not a very good archiving system that can't preserve the complete
> information. The new buzz seems to be 'hybrids' (CD/Web), which gives you
> the links back, but then you are on the ever-changing Internet again.
Archivists are used to choosing what to preserve, and we may have to get
used to the fact that we cannot preserve the complete information. Since
I suspect that concepts like the EJ or the e-monograph will become
increasingly fuzzy round the edges, either 'finite but un-bounded' or
possibly 'infinite', preserving them will be difficult. Someone has then
to arbitrarily choose where the preservation job stops. That, however, is
infintely preferable to no-one choosing at all, and preservation never
starting!
--
Chris Rusbridge
Programme Director, Electronic Libraries Programme
The Library, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
Phone 01203 524979 Fax 01203 524981
Email [log in to unmask]
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