As someone who is currently working on an excavation report for publication
in Internet Archaeology I though I'd add my thoughts...
I agree that internet publication offers the possibility of having a layered
approach to publishing an excavation, but with an excavation there is almost
always going to be some linear progress, even if it is only chronological
(latest to earliest of vice/versa). The very nature of archaeological
stratigraphy surely creates a certain linear progression in the
understanding or interpretation of a site.
I think the most useful aspect is the possibilities it opens up for
integrating other parts of the report, such as pottery/finds/environmental
data- the ability to click on a context number and be given a list of finds
etc is incredibly useful, and so much easier than trying to read a site
report as I'm sure most people have done, with fingers or book marks in a
three or four different sections, trying to cross-reference sf numbers and
context numbers.To a certain extent this is not more non-linear than a paper
publication. Surely the very presence of an index in the back of a book,
means that they can be read in non-linear ways,
My biggest worry about truly free-form texts is what happens when they are
taken off the Internet- whilst an article/paper may be orginally designed
for an Internet presentation, I think at the moment many people are going to
be making hard-copies of useful articles, and treat them like photocopies-
this is something I have often done myself, for the simple reason, that
whatever the pros/cons of Internet publishing you can read a print-out on
the train, in the bath etc,. Equally although publications like Internet
Archaeology are always going to be securely archived, there is a worry that
some papers may disappear from the Internet for a whole host of reasons, and
thus only survive as a hard-copy. Thirdly until everyone has instant access
to the Internet, paper copies of publications are inevitably going to
continue to be circulated, as it is the only means many people have of
getting at the information. I know from personal experience that I have
often had to make printouts of Internet articles to pass on to a friend in
India, who has no Internet access.
In such a situation the non-linearity of an Internet publication could turn
into a positive nightmare when on paper. Whilst ideally Internet
publications should be able to ignore the linear dimension of a written
text, there are always going to be these very practical limitations to using
truly non-linear approaches to Internet publication
Dave Petts
Editor
York Archaeological Trust
Cromwell House
13 Ogleforth
York
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