Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 11:35:59 +0200
From: Michael Walker <[log in to unmask]>
David Petts is certainly right when he says that writing an internet
excavation account involves a rather different approach from that in a
print journal, and I learnt a lot through Judith's help, about just how
different the approach needs to be, when putting together our Intarch
article two years ago. And yes, some graphic material can indeed present
difficulties (once again, Judith's help was simply tremendous).
Nevertheless, I would strongly encourage internet publication by all and
everyone. One very great advantage is that a much fuller account and
discussion can be given together, accompanied by abundant tables, graphs
and photographs, than most print journals nowadays are prepared to
contemplate.
This is a salutary corrective to the predominant trend for print journals
to increasingly separate themselves out into those which limit themselves
to discussion (often heavily methodological or theoretical, and very often
limited to under 4,000 words per article), and those in which reports of
current research findings are offered (all too often no less summary).
Unfortunately, too many prestigious referees of the former disdain
excavation details as "inappropriate distraction from attention to
fundamental issues", and too many of the latter are simply too provincial
or parochial to appear in citation indices (Arts and Humanities Citation
Index; Social Science Citation Index; Science Citation Index) and may never
reach the attention of international scholars (very few European-language
national print-journals let alone regional journals are to be found on
archaeological shelves of even the major U.S. academic libraries, and
likewise in Europe such important regional U.S. journals as "Plains
Anthropologist" is hidden away, largely unread, at such prestigious centres
as Oxford University where it accumulates in the stack vaults of Rhodes
House!).
All too often, neither type of print-journal does justice to complex
matters which, again all too often, have to await preparation and
publication of costly monographs that increasingly are out of touch with
current theoretical and methodological concerns when they eventually reach
their overdue publication.
Away from the internet, interim publication and discussion in detail is
getting to be very difficult indeed; which is far and away the best reason
for increasing internet dissemination of details of complex work in
progress.
Unlike David Petts, though, I do not think that it is really a problem
to have to tell people where to look with their computer, who are used to
browsing through print journals and spotting things for themselves which
interest them without having to be told where to look. The message soon
spreads to the people who really need to know and want to know.
Michael Walker
Murcia University (Spain)
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