Computerization and Electronic Texts

Brendan Rapple AD140

Spring, 2003 Boston College

Today

word processing

email

simple searching of online

databases or catalogs account for most use by humanists

However, scientists, technologists are much heavier users of computers.

Other Uses of Technology

Creation of such general resources as dictionaries and bibliographies.

Retrospective conversion of manuscript or printed sources into machine-readable form.

Creation of specific research tools, such as databases and image banks.

Computer Graphics (think of archaeologists, architects etc.)

Computers Greatly Facilitate Retrieval of Information

Limiting by specific fields and formats and the use of Boolean searching.

Advances the Research Process

Swifter searching of databases

Browsing of online table of contents of journals

Full-text documents

Indexes and abstracts are being published more quickly

Other Publishing Benefits of the Web

Illustrations and even animation on Web pages;

One can be very innovative with respect to style: the power of easy linking the aesthetic attractiveness displayed by many Web

pages lengthy footnotes inclusion of raw data

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION

E-MAIL

News of work in progress, often including exchange of copies of papers.

Ongoing conversation with specialists elsewhere.

E-mail often allows the researcher to handle more important responsibilities -- ordinary business can get done more quickly.

Other Networked Information

Electronic Archives

Automated Library Catalogs

Full-text Databases

Bibliographic Databases

E-Journals

Graphics

Animation

Video

Census Data

Numerical Databases

Digitization of Picture and Slide Collections and Archives

Production of Multimedia Courseware and Interactive Learning Sessions

A Scholar can Consult

Digital image collections from the Vatican or the Louvre

Digital text archives at major universities

Online journals

Bibliographies

Information on scholarly societies

Moving images -- Video

Online catalogs

Dissertations

Increasingly, sound files

Syllabi for thousands of academic courses

And much more

Digital Images

Archaeologists, art historians, geographers, and historians are making increasing use of digital image processing.

Many museums, large and small, host online exhibitions – one in effect goes on a virtual tour of the galleries.

Sound Files

Delivering sound files across a network enhances online scholarship in music.

The Journal of Seventeenth Century Music, a refereed journal, provides audio.

Ethnomusicology Online features peer-reviewed articles, all accompanied by illustrative audio

files and multimedia.

Retroconversion Projects

The great advantage is access to rare texts or other

materials that are brittle, damaged, or not easily

accessible.

Microfilm

Microfilm, long used as a means of preserving

brittle books, is also being digitized.

The Notion of a “Virtual Library”

Some Drawbacks to the WWW

Missing, defective, or outdated links

Difficulties in ascertaining the authority behind most Web sites

Misleading titles of many sites

Sheer amount of material available.

Other General Objections Include

Possible inauthenticity.

Possible substitution of quantity for quality.

Fear of researchers that they will no longer be needed as

teachers.

Big Problem is “Quality”

Much of the material on the Web is junk.

Nevertheless Change is Nigh

Electronic access and approaches to research in most disciplines are here to stay.

Print Technology

Evolved over a long period of time.

Books consist of pages delivering text in a single linear sequence.

Page numbers and running heads used for identification purposes.

Books often include tables of contents and back-of-the book indexes.

Print

Footnotes, bibliographies, illustrations etc. provide additional methods of cross-referencing.

A title page provides a convention for identifying the book and its author and publication details.

Book’s length often determined by publishers' costs, rather than

by what the author really wants to say about subject.

Electronic Technology

More difficult to read it sequentially than on paper -- still we can read it.

Moreover, we can search and manipulate the information in many different ways.

No need for back-of-the-book index -- we can search for any word or phrase using the seek/find command.

We no longer need to read whole book to find one paragraph, but can just access the piece of information we need.

We can find a bibliographic reference and go immediately to the place to which it points.

We can count instances of features within the information.

A work may never be considered as completely finished.

Very idea of what constitutes a publication may change.

Fundamental revolution in communication

The Individual Scholar As Publisher

Simplest approach is for individual scholar to do it herself -- however, many need help.

Though much nonsense is on the web, it’s still an excellent medium for publishing serious, scholarly work.

No longer any need for most people to learn the intricacies of HTML code.

Advantages of Publishing on WWW

Comparatively little cost involved.

Bypass often lengthy processes of print publication. Personal web sites have a high degree of immediacy and accessibility.

Offers the possibility of reaching a new audience -- not limited to world of colleges/universities/scholars.

Contact between user of a Web site and its authors can be

direct and immediate.

Disadvantages of Publishing on WWW

A poorly designed Web site may appear amateurish and non-scholarly.

Self-published e-texts have, generally, bypassed usual system of peer review/“quality control.”

Individually published e-texts may disappear without a

trace.

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)

The Dictionary of Old English (DOE)

The Dartmouth Dante Project Database

Wesleyan Confucian Project

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

GREAT UNION CATALOGS

OCLC (WorldCat) RLIN

Combined Sources/Multimedia

Hypermedia systems link such media as• images• animation• sound• video

to text.

American Memory(Multimedia--Library of Congress)

Primary source and archival materials relating to American culture and history.

Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities

in the American Civil War

Examines the communities, daily life, politics,

and religious and racial conflicts surrounding

the Civil War.

The Victorian Women Writers Project (Indiana University)

Transcriptions of rare literary works, etc. by British women writers of late nineteenth century.

U. of Virginia Library's Early

American Fiction Archive

About 582 volumes of early American fiction.

Electronic Journals

E.G.: JSTOR

Project Muse

Emerald Library

Preservation of Digital Data

Considering how quickly software and hardware

become obsolete, the danger is clear.