Dear Judy,
Thank you for your detailed comments on what you called my "thought
-provoking posting". I read with interest the many opinions around the
future of Internet Archaeology.
I agree with most of the people expressing the need for stability of
electronic papers. Any additions or post publishing modifications should
be added distinctly. But I strongly believe it would be VERY interesting
to be added ! Unlike paper publishing, electronic articles are Web
pages. If you "visit" the Web page of a paper written three years ago,
you wonder what happened afterwards. If the article is not "updated",
you might have the same unpleasant feeling as visiting a Web page with
information "frozen" a long time ago. It is useful, even interesting.
But you go on-line for very fresh information on the topic you are
interested. What you expect from on-line information is not exactly the
same you expect from a printed journal collection. It is true that
archaeological information does not change so often (although this might
be not true anymore, with the rate of rescue excavations and changing
theories...) An archaeological journal is not a newspaper. Still, you
need additions. For instance, I would like to know if the book "Roman
Amphoras in Britain" of the famous intarcher Paul Tyers (a chapter was
published in Issue 1, a masterpiece of Web publishing!) was published
(where?, when?) and if there have been any important discoveries of
Roman amphoras in Britain since then.
On the other side, if all the authors would constantly "update" their
articles, Internet Archaeology becomes a kind of club with registered
members bound for life to research and write additions on a topic they
had the bad idea to publish once in this e-journal. It would be crazy!
Or not? I wonder if an e-journal, unlike a paper one (or better saying,
MORE than a paper one), is not creating a rather stable virtual
community? Of people writing, reading, communicating through e-mail,
visiting each other from time to time, and going "home" to their
e-journal to see what's new... We experience something very new, beyond
the tradition of academic journals we are so obsessed to copy.
On funding sources, you wrote:
>Advertising would be a fine option were it not for the fact that IA is based in an academic institution and connected to the Internet through JANET we are barred from including advertising on the web site.
It is a pity that you cannot advertise for archaeology and history
books! It would be really useful for readers, and a possible source of
money (modest, I suppose).
On contributors, you wrote:
>Any journal in the beginning can only be made up of the contacts of the people involved, and you might find it hard to believe, but there can often be great difficulties in persuading people to write for the medium.
Oh, I believe that very much! We face everywhere the same resistance. It
seems that archaeologists (and not only they!) more complain about not
having where to publish their long, important, richly illustrated
researches. When they are offered a digital medium with unlimited space,
a global audience, good coloured images, they show no enthusiasm. It is
the conservatism of the academic medium. That will change. I hope...
On readers' comments you wrote:
>But as you can probably tell, it hasn't quite worked the way we had hoped! Very few comments have been made
about ANY of the papers.
That is really strange! Is it our strong habit of paper journal readers?
You don't send letters to either editorial boards or authors of any
paper you read! Is our unease of commenting in public (while gossiping
in private)? It is our lack of time, or laziness?
Or we have not been "provoked" strongly enough by the authors
themselves? The same style of writing a paper (again the model of many
academic journals: impersonal, technical, in "archeospeak", ignoring the
audience, written for Posterity or for a very narrow circle of people
interested in the same narrow topic - I am joking a little, sorry...)
induces the same traditional attitude of the readers: silence.
I don't blame anyone! We simply don't know to write different. We must
learn a new way of communicating archaeology. We must try and experience
a new style of writing archaeology, for the Internet: more addressing,
more open, having in mind that our readers are on-line (it is like
speaking in public), that our audience is larger than the traditional
one of an academic journal. The editorial boards can do a lot in
stimulating and researching these new ways, in guiding authors. It is
very hard, I know. It is still one of the main arguments for
e-publishing.
On links, you wrote:
>Regarding using links, for many of the subjects we have published, I could say links to what? The sites simply aren't out there yet to link to and it would hardly be worth anyone's time and effort to be linked to
vaguely related sites if no others of note exist.
Some sites are. Some will be. Yet not very stable, I agree. What I would
like to suggest is the attitude of e-journals towards the digital
network: of encouraging systematically, as a policy, navigation and
links on the Internet. It is not possible for each paper, but for most.
I think of "editorial board links", "readers' links", distinct from
"author's links", to sites or electronic papers on more or less the same
topic, larger, or narrower. Just make the place for these in the page
design of the articles and give examples! We might do the rest.
It is a lot to say. Every statement should be discussed from many
angles. If I do not make myself clear enough, it is because of the
complexity of the subject, but also because of the language barrier. I
and some of your readers face the extra problem of reading and writing
in English as a foreign language.
You expressed interest in multilingual approach. As usual,
"multilingual" is the same old "bilingual": English and French. I don't
expect readers of Internet Archaeology to read a paper in Romanian or
Danish! Or the editorial board to give English lessons alongside with
the journal! I only bring to your attention (and mercy!) the
international multilingual public. We are more shy. Language is a more
sensitive problem in an interactive medium, on-line communication, than
in the printed one. We must cope with that. Just make us, non-native
English speakers, feel welcome. Maybe one day e-journals will make room
for abstracts in many languages, if there are volunteers to do the job:
"If you want to translate an abstract of this paper in your native
language, do it in this form". But then, who will review the
translation, to certify its quality? How complicated and time consuming
work editing of an e-journal should be? But that is another discussion.
I DO CARE of Internet Archaeology and publishing archaeology on the
Internet. As many of the readers.
Best regards,
Irina
--
Irina Oberlander-Tarnoveanu
CIMEC - Institutul de Memorie Culturala
(Institute for Cultural Memory)
Piata Presei Libere 1, CP. 33-90, 41 341 Bucharest, Romania
Tel./fax: (+401) 222.33.47 http://www.cimec.ro
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