VPIEJ-L 04/93
VPIEJ-L Discussion Archives
April 1993
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Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1993 12:40:59 EDT
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From: mmurrain@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT (FWD)
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Date: 01 Apr 1993 14:52:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: JMONTGOMERY@smith
Subject: POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
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Smith College invites applications for the newly-created position of
Library
Systems Coordinator. The successful candidate will coordinate the
planning,
installation, training, and operational support for computer hardware,
software, and networks dedicated to library functions, including the
integrated system, stand-alone and networked CD-ROM systems, Internet
resources and remote services, and library office automation. Reporting to
the Director of Libraries and serving as a member of the library management
team, the coordinator will work closely with library staff, the college's
Department of Information Systems, vendors, and with library users. Smith
College is a member of Five Colleges, Inc. and shares an online union
catalog
with Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, and Hampshire colleges and the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst; the consortium is in the process of migrating to
a new integrated system.
Responsibilities: Guide the continued integration of information
technology
into the Libraries' operations and services: serve as the principal Smith
College expert on the five-college integrated library system; coordinate
the
operation, expansion, and training for the CD-ROM network, for future local
networks supported by the library, and for Internet-based resources and
services; coordinate and monitor the Libraries' onsite file servers,
software
for office and reference use, and related files; coordinate procurement,
installation, and troubleshooting of hardware and software and oversee
related
contracts, licenses, and accounts; write documentation and undertake minor
custom programming where needed; ensure proper data backup and disaster
recovery planning; provide automation-related training for library staff
and
users; serve as principal library liaison with Information Systems, Five
Colleges automation groups, NELINET, and vendors. Serve on the Library
Staff Council, share in library-wide planning duties with division
coordinators, and carry out administrative assignments not limited to
technical concerns.
Qualifications:Required: A master's degree, preferably in library science
(ALA- accredited) or in computing/information systems; at least 5 years
experience with integrated library systems, electronic information
resources,
and microcomputer hardware and software; management and planning experience
in
a library setting. Highly desired: Working knowledge of CD-ROMs, LANs,
multi-user systems, and the Internet.
Salary: Minimum starting salary is $32,270. Application deadline: April
23,
1993. Send resume and names of three references to: Employment Group,
Office o
f Human
Resources, Smith College, Box 920, Northampton, MA 01063. An affirmative
action
, equal
opportunity institution. Minorities and women are encouraged to apply.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1993 08:42:56 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: Resource update
VPIEJ-L Resources
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The Scholarly Communications Project of Virginia Tech has an anonymous FTP
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5, Internet file server (ftp) sites/, then item 2, Popular FTP Sites via
Gopher/. This ftp site is also accessible via a gopher server at borg.lib
.vt.edu port 5070.
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bit.listserv.vpiej-l
VPIEJ-L is a discussion list for electronic publishing issues, especially
those related to Scholarly Electronic Journals. Topics for discussion include
SGML, PostScript, and other e-journal formats; as well as software and hardware
considerations for creation of, storage, and access to e-journals. Publishers,
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to join. One goal of the list is to provide better feedback from users to
creators, so we are very interested in receiving and archival issues. This
should give those of us involved in publishing an idea as to what distribution
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Owner: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1>
James Powell >>> Library Automation, University Libraries, VPI&SU
>>> JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU O+>
>>> jpowell@borg.lib.vt.edu - NeXTMail welcome here
>>> Owner of VPIEJ-L, a discussion list for Electronic Journals
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Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 15:54:16 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
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From: John Price-Wilkin <jpw@sansfoy.lib.virginia.edu>
Subject: Society plans electronic publishing effort
Cross-posted to the following library lists:
Colldv-l, Exlibris, libref-l, pacs-l, rlgpscd, VPIEJ-L
SOCIETY FOR EARLY ENGLISH AND NORSE ELECTRONIC TEXTS
We announce with this notice, which we are sending to
several related lists, the formation of a new scholarly organiza-
tion, The Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts
(SEENET). SEENET will procure, produce, and disseminate scholar-
ly electronic editions of Old Norse, Old English and Middle
English texts. We will combine the full capacities of computer
technology with the highest standards of traditional scholarly
editing to publish machine-readable texts with reliable introduc-
tory materials, annotations, and apparatus. Texts will conform
to the Text Encoding Initiative's (TEI) guidelines for markup in
the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
An electronic text offers unprecedented advantages to
historians, literary critics, linguists, and editors. Unlike
earlier, printed critical texts, the electronic text permits
multiple manipulations of individual manuscripts, archetypes, and
critical texts as well as combinations of each. Such texts lend
themselves to sophisticated searches, concordancing, collations,
and other forms of text retrieval. Editors may present in full
both "good" and "bad" manuscripts, permitting literary historians
to study the history of the reception of the text as shown by
scribal changes or marginal annotations. Historical linguists
may study developments in the history of the language through
access to large databases of scribal spellings in all the dia-
lects and time periods reflected in many different textual
traditions. Scholars interested in stylistic analysis are able
to make fuller and more complete studies of metrical, lexical, or
syntactic patterning than are possible with printed texts.
Moreover, the extremely flexible nature of an electronic text is
ideal for representing complex textual traditions, even of works
like Piers Plowman, where editors confront high degrees of ambi-
guity and uncertainty. Electronic editions will accommodate
scholars who prefer "best text" documentary editions as well as
those who want the best possible modern editorial reconstruc-
tions.
Questions of the accessibility and quality of electronic
texts are, therefore, a matter of current concern to a scholarly
community increasingly enabled by electronic media. We are all
aware that the limitations imposed by the printed codex need no
longer constrain our historical, cultural, linguistic, or textual
scholarship. Nevertheless, the institutional means for producing
and disseminating reliable electronic texts are at present
haphazard and inadequate. Scholars familiar with the Oxford Text
Archive or with the Anglo-Saxon corpus know only too well how
various is the quality of texts in those useful collections.
Meanwhile, novice editors enthusiastic about computing are
adapting older printed editions for more or less elaborate forms
of textual manipulation. Unhappily, such editions are more often
selected for the single reason that they are out of copyright
than for the quality of their texts. Furthermore, large and
extremely costly commercial projects such as the Chadwyck-Healey
version of the Patrologia Latina or their similar corpus of
English poetry have become means of disseminating older, obsolete
editions. Such collections are too immediately useful to be dis-
missed in spite of the uneven quality of the texts thus made
available, but scholars are coming to associate electronic texts
with poor editions. If the full potential of computer technology
is to be realized by scholars in the humanities, our first and
most important task will be to make available reliable scholarly
editions, texts that are as sophisticated in their linguistic,
paleographic, codicological, historical dimensions as they are in
their computer technology.
PUBLICATIONS
Our Editorial Board will solicit, evaluate, select, and
oversee scholarly editions for publication in three series.
SERIES A will provide book-length editions published on
floppy disks (usually under five megabytes). We will
publish both diplomatic transcriptions of manuscript
texts and critical texts, or combinations of the two.
Texts will be accompanied by an introduction as well as
appropriate historical, paleographic, codicological,
lexical, and interpretative annotations.
SERIES B will consist of multi-level editions of cul-
turally important works with complex textual or criti-
cal traditions. Texts in this series will accommodate
some or all of the following features:
(a) digitized facsimiles of some or all manuscripts,
(b) diplomatic transcriptions of each manuscript with
appropriate annotation,
(c) a reconstructed archetype with annotation,
(d) an edited text with annotations (perhaps incor-
porating critical comments of previous editors),
(e) a display of collated variants,
(f) lemmatized concordances of each manuscript, the
archetype, and the critical text,
(g) critical introduction, and
(h) a glossary.
Texts in Series B will be published on CD-ROM disks or tape.
SERIES C will serve an interim function by publishing
electronic versions of useful older editions with SGML
markup, until such time as the works may be re-edited.
One example might be an electronic version of Finnur
J"nsson's Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning published
in 1912-15 with both diplomatic transcriptions from
single manuscripts (Series A) and heavily edited texts
of the skaldic corpus (Series B). An electronic text
of this outdated printed text would serve until SEENET
is able to publish new electronic versions of the
skaldic corpus.
STRUCTURE OF THE SOCIETY
(a) The Editorial Board
Peter Baker, The University of Virginia.
Hoyt N. Duggan, The University of Virginia.
A. S. G. Edwards, University of Victoria, British
Columbia
Anthony Faulkes, The University of Birmingham
Ralph Hanna III, University of California--River-
side
Judith Jesch, Institute for Medieval Studies,
University of Nottingham
John Price-Wilkin, Information Management Coordi-
nator, Alderman Library, The University of
Virginia
Peter Robinson, Computing Service, Oxford University
Thorlac Turville-Petre, Institute for Medieval
Studies, University of Nottingham
(b) The ADVISORY BOARD consists of an international group of
distinguished medievalists who will advise SEENET's Board of Edi-
tors on matters of policy. The present Advisory Board consists
of the following scholars:
Professors John Alford, Michigan State University; Ste-
phen Barney, University of California, Irvine; Larry D.
Benson, Harvard University; John Burrow, Bristol;
Patrick Conner, West Virginia University; Marilyn
Deegan, Oxford University; Christine Fell, Institute
for Medieval Studies, University of Nottingham; Allen
Frantzen, Loyola University, Chicago; David Greetham,
Graduate School and University Center, CUNY; Thomas J.
Heffernan, University of Tennessee; Robert L. Kellogg,
University of Virginia; Kevin Kiernan, University of
Kentucky; V.A. Kolve, University of California, Los
Angeles; Ian Lancashire, University of Toronto; Michael
Lapidge, Cambridge University; Anne Middleton, Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley; Alistair Minnis, Univer-
sity of York; Douglas Moffat, University of Michigan;
Derek Pearsall, Harvard University; Fred Robinson, Yale
University; Geoffrey Russom, Brown University; R. A.
Shoaf, University of Florida, A. C. Spearing, Univer-
sity of Virginia; and Paul Szarmach, SUNY Binghamton.
(c) The Members of the Society
Members will pay an annual fee which will entitle them
to receive the SEENET Newsletter and one text from
Series A or C. Just as with the Early English Text
Society, members will be able to purchase SEENET's
other electronic texts at a discounted price, and the
texts will be available to non-members at a higher
price.
We are presently seeking the sponsorship of a major
academic press to publish our three series, and it
would be helpful in that effort if we can offer pub-
lishers an idea of the potential membership for the new
society. We would like to know what kinds of member-
ship fees would be acceptable and whether scholars
would be willing to submit their scholarly electronic
texts to SEENET for publication.
Response Form
1. Is your library likely to join SEENET?
2. Would the library be more interested in acquiring specific
texts from SEENET or in acquiring all SEENET texts?
3. Would your library be willing to pay $30.00 per year to be a
member of SEENET and receive one text from Series A or C? Would
it pay $60.00? How much would your library be willing to pay for
individual Series A or C texts on a standing order basis? Keep
in mind that each is equivalent in length to printed books of
200-500 pages.
4. Does your library's collection development policy address
collecting electronic texts? If so, would you mind sharing your
policy with SEENET.
5. What is your library's involvement in acquiring electronic
texts and making them accessible? Are there other groups on
campus doing this, and if so, are the efforts being coordinated
with the library?
6. If electronic texts are currently being made available by
your institution, in what formats and through what means (e.g.,
personal computers or networked access) are the texts made
available?
7. What distribution medium would your institution prefer in
receiving texts?
8. What rights/privileges for access and distribution of texts
does your library feel are necessary to include in licensing?
9. Are scholars at your institution working with specific Old
English, Old Norse, or Middle English texts that you would
particularly like to see become available?
10. What texts would you most like to see available in electron-
ic form?
We invite comments, criticism, and support from librarians.
Responses by e-mail may be directed to
hnd@virginia.edu (or) hnd@virginia.bitnet
or by regular post to either
Thorlac Turville-Petre
Department of English
University of Nottingham
Nottingham NG7 2RD
England
or
Hoyt N. Duggan
Department of English
The University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 08:57:52 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Dirk Herr-Hoyman <hoymand@joe.uwex.edu>
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Extension
Subject: An Invitation to Try the Electronic Journal of Extension
An Invitation from the
Electronic Journal of Extension Project Team
---------------------------------------------------------------------
* Journal of Extension Now Available
in Electronic Format on the Internet
from almanac@joe.uwex.edu
* Please Forward this Notice to Colleagues,
Appropriate Lists, Newsgroups and Forums!
We invite you to try the Journal of Extension, now available
in several electronic formats on the Internet via the
Almanac E-mail document server.
If you receive this message more than once, we apologize.
Please consider these redundant message as mount evidence for
your affinity with our journal :-)
THE JOURNAL OF EXTENSION
The Journal of Extension (JOE) is the official refereed
publication of the Cooperative Extension System. Its articles
update and improve the effectiveness of 10,000 professional
Extension and adult educators in 16 countries.
The Journal also serves as a forum for emerging and contemporary
issues affecting Extension education. It's written and
edited by Extension professionals, sharing with their
colleagues successful educational applications, original
and applied research findings, scholarly opinions,
educational resources and challenges on issues important
to Extension and adult educators.
The Cooperative Extension System (CES), a national educational
network, is a dynamic, ever-changing organization pledged to
meeting the United States' needs for research, knowledge, and
educational programs that will enable people to make practical
decisions. Its mission is to help people improve their lives
through an educational process that uses scientific knowledge
focused on issues and needs. CES is a unique educational system
that draws on the expertise of federal, state, and local partners
to extend research-based knowledge and technology from the
laboratory to the community via a nationwide network of educators
serving in the national interest.
THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF EXTENSION
We publish the Electronic Journal of Extension (EJOE)
simultaneously with its established print version.
During our pilot project, we'll electronically publish five
issues (Winter '92 through Winter '93).
Subscribers to EJOE may request articles in text, PostScript,
and Rich Text Formats from current and back issues. EJOE is
one of a few E-journals that offers multiple formats to
their subscribers.
Also, you may send search requests via E-mail that query a
collection of over 500 JOE articles published since the
Winter 1987 issue.
We plan as well to distribute EJOE as Gopher and WAIS
information services. We'll support anonymous FTP access
to our article collection. Other future enhancements
include the use of MIME (Multimedia Internet Mail
Extensions), and likely use of Adobe Acrobat's PDF (Portable
Document Format).
SUBSCRIPTIONS
To subscribe to the Electronic Journal of Extension, send
an E-mail message to almanac@joe.uwex.edu. Place in the
message the line:
subscribe joe
To request the current issue announcement message, which
includes a table of contents and abstracts, send an E-mail
message to almanac@joe.uwex.edu. Place in the message the line:
send joe announcement
To help us decide whether to continue publishing EJOE, we'll ask
a randomly selected group of subscribers to evaluate the
electronic format.
For more details on the Electronic Journal of Extension Pilot
Project, contact:
Dirk Herr-Hoyman
Internet Publishing Specialist
Electronic Journal of Extension Project Coordinator
University of Wisconsin-Extension
hoymand@joe.uwex.edu (NeXTmail accepted)
608-262-4552
---------------------------------------------------------------------
An EEO/Affirmative Action employer, University of Wisconsin-Extension
provides equal opportunities in employment and programming,
including Title IX and ADA requirements.
Acrobat and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Inc.
Mention of brand names or commercial products does not constitute
endorsement or recommendation by the University of Wisconsin-Extension.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 16:26:16 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stu Weibel <weibel@oclc.org>
Subject: E-publishing and paper sales
At National Net 93 last week in Washington, Tracy LaQuey Parker
described her experience with mounting an ASCII version of her book,
_An Internet Companion_, on the Online Bookstore (obs@world.std.com)
for free downloading (one chapters a month). The publisher (Addison
Wesley) was a bit concerned about the possibility of lost sales, but
having ceded electronic distribution rights, they did not object.
The publisher believes that sales increased as a consequence (they
received orders from countries they had never received orders from
before). An interesting case-history that should not be lost on
publishers or authors.
Not that the lesson is universal... it presumes content that is
interesting and in demand (ie., the ascii tantalizes rather than
traumatizes), and the situation may be entirely different for
occasional reference resources that are `consulted' rather than
'read'.
More to the point for journal literature... Would free distribution of
abstracts enhance or depress fee-based document delivery or
subscriptions?
stu
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 08:26:52 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Brendan Kehoe <brendan@lisa.cygnus.com>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue,
20 Apr 1993 16:26:16 EDT." <9304202030.AA20126@cygnus.com>
> At National Net 93 last week in Washington, Tracy LaQuey Parker
> described her experience with mounting an ASCII version of her book,
> _An Internet Companion_, on the Online Bookstore (obs@world.std.com)
> for free downloading (one chapters a month). The publisher (Addison
> Wesley) was a bit concerned about the possibility of lost sales, but
> having ceded electronic distribution rights, they did not object.
>
> The publisher believes that sales increased as a consequence (they
> received orders from countries they had never received orders from
> before). An interesting case-history that should not be lost on
> publishers or authors.
I went through something really similar. Prentice Hall at first
strenuously resisted letting anything at all be available on the Net
(even though it was already out there for months before I even talked
with anyone there). After some pretty funny suggestions (don't let
anyone on the Net copy it, just let them look at it---something's
wrong), they finally let in and let me leave the earlier edition
freely available. It's just another learning curve which happens to
be centered around an idea that smacks full in the face of what a
publisher expects to happen. Reportedly more people have been getting
the "free" one then buying the second edition than they anticipated
(if the mail I've been getting is any indication). Once the initial
fear that you're somehow going to hurt a market by using electronic
distribution is dissipated, I hope a lot of other publishers follow
the same route. If paid-subscription journals were to follow suit by
doing electronic distribution of their back issues, or select portions
thereof, it'd be fantastic!
Brendan
--
Brendan Kehoe brendan@cygnus.com
Cygnus Support, Mountain View, CA +1 415 903 1400
``In a cruel and imperfect world,'' says critic Rex Reed,
``[Audrey Hepburn] was living proof that God could still create perfection.''
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 10:31:21 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Harald Lux <lux@dmrhrz11.bitnet>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 20 Apr 1993 16:26:16 EDT from <weibel@oclc.org>
> Not that the lesson is universal...
As you said. I think there are two points to consider in this
case:
1.The reader has to be very patient if he wants to read the
hole book on-line (six Chapters plus Foreword and Appendix,
only one chapter per month ...)
2.They seem to be behind schedule. I connected yesterday per
anonymous ftp to world.std.com (Directory
/OBS/The.Internet.Companion) and the last and actual chapter
Three is dated "Feb 16 05:02".
> More to the point for journal literature... Would free
> distribution of abstracts enhance or depress fee-based
> document delivery or subscriptions?
About this I found an article (but in German and rather old):
Manfred Loeben; Wolfgang Runge
Auswirkungen computergestuetzter Informationsdienste auf die
Nutzung von Fachzeitschriften
(Impacts of Computer-Aided Information Services on the Use of
Scientific and Technical Journals)
Nachrichten fuer Dokumentation (34) 1983, Nr. 2, 93-98
An extract form their (English) summary:
"Impacts of computer-aided bibliographic information
services on the use and purchase of scientific and
technical journals have been investigated on two levels.
On the microscopic level the results of questionnaires
with end-users of the services and intermediaries have
shown that (1) through the data bases the general use of
literature is increased and (2) abstracts do not serve as
substitutes for the original literature except for topics
outside of the primary interest. ¢...¦ On the macroscopic
level time-series of print-runs (1968-1980) for selected
groups of scientific and technical journals have been
analyzed on the basis of various aggregations. These
analyses do not give any evidence that computer-aided
information services have a negative influence on
journals."
The information services they investigated were commercial but
I think these results are transferable to free distribution of
abstracts like 'current cites'.
They also found that "The increased use of scientific and
technical literature as a result of computer-aided information
services has no influence on the journal subscription of the
end-users, the need for more literature probably being
satisfied through lending from libraries. On the other hand,
the use of secondary services in for-profit organisations has
induced subscription to more journals."
They cite two other investigations which found similar results:
Cronin, B.: CAB Abstracts: A Global View. Aslib Proceedings
(32) 1980, p. 425
Wanger, J.; Cuadra, C.A. and Fishburn, M.: Impact of On-Line-
Retrieval-Services: A Survey of Users, 1974-1975. System
Development Corp., Santa Monica, 1976
Maybe there are some newer studies?
Harald
---------------------------------------------------------------
Harald Lux lux@dmrhrz11.hrz.uni-marburg.de
Moischter Str. 45 lux@dmrhrz11.bitnet
W-3550 Marburg 7 CIS: 100024,3231
Germany Tel.: +49 6421 481310
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 08:52:27 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Linda Hulbert, Medical Center Library" <hulbertla@sluvca.slu.edu>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
This was very interesting. According to some medical journal gurus (S.
Locke former editor of the BMJ and Lundberg, editor of JAMA,) a large
percentage of medical decisions are made based on the ABSTRACT of an
article. That's why they pushed for the structured abstract. It's
a horror that that's the basis for medical action (or inaction), but if
that's the way it is, I wonder what freeing up the abstracts would do
to borrowing/lending copyright etc.
Linda Hulbert, Assistant Director
for Technical Services
Saint Louis University Medical Center Library
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 08:52:40 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: "Linda Hulbert, Medical Center Library" <hulbertla@sluvca.slu.edu>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
I'm sorry, I had one more thought on this. It has been my contention
that the journal is the more likely medium to be changed from paper to
electronics. The desired article stands alone. The one before it and
after it are seldom of interest. It is independent and discreet and
gives little context for the item being discussed. EG a journal article on
peptides will be of little interest to MOST people. It will have a tiny
audience because it will be on a tiny bit of information on peptides. but
a book on peptides, puts the subject within its discipline. Gives its
history, its value for study and the index will permit meandering thru
the book. I watch the changes in publishing with interest to see if
this theory is so. Book publishers and vendors are terrified, but I think
the book is here to stay. Now the journal as we know it, MAY go the way
of the card catalog.
Linda Hulbert, Assistant Director
for Technical Services
Saint Louis University Medical Center Library
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:56:45 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: "Natalie S. King" <nking@wam.umd.edu>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
I'm usually just a "lurker" on this list but I want to make a remark
about Linda Hulbert's statement that journal articles stand alone with the
one before and after being of little interest. As a former scientist and
current library researcher, I can tell you there are many times that
serendipity has played a role in my information gathering--e.g., I go
to look up one article and find one in the same issue that is even more
valuable than the one I sought originally. They may not be on the same topic
but I have many research interests and I've really found a lot of good stuff
this way.
Just some thoughts over a cup of Earl Grey.
----Natalie King
Univ. of MD at College Park
nking@wam.umd.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:57:14 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: "John R. Garrett" <0004716758@mcimail.com>
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
Linda Hulbert sees the journal as a collection of articles, which, in a digital
library, can readily be transmitted individually. I think that we may see, in
addition to individual article transmission, a new form of browsable, linked
articles (by subject, author, theme, etc.) that we will experience like a
journal, although we may call it something else. I could even imagine that this
new form may replace the book as we have known it. Paper journals are useful in
part because of the serendipitious relationships among articles, authors,
sources that they embody: I think we'll want that more, not less, in the future.
AT&T's RightPages makes this assumption too (I think), which is one reason I
like it. Many of us are searching for "wandering-through-the-stacks" metaphors,
and there are interesting ways for digital libraries to supply them. I rarely
know (really don't want to know) exactly what I'm looking for when I begin
browsing, and when I find what I want it's not what I would have said I was
looking for in the beginning. And I like it that way.
John Garrett
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 08:22:02 EDT
Reply-To: BROWPHYL@ux1.isu.edu
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "BROWN, PHYLLIS" <browphyl@ucs.isu.edu>
Organization: Idaho State University
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
John Garrett's serendipitous experience can be repeated somewhat
with a search on a topic in CARL's UNCOVER or a browse command
which shows table of contents pages for any given issue of any
journal title which they list.
They list 11,000 titles now and are shooting for 20,000 in the
future.
We get closer to the virtual library every day.
----Phyllis J. Brown <browphyl@isu.edu> Acquisitions
Oboler Library Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209-8089
(208) 236-2670
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 10:37:12 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: Marsha Woodbury <mcwg9235@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Subject: Re: E-publishing and paper sales
Another lurker speaks up. Linda Hubert spoke for my romantic
side, but I have my doubts about how books and journals will
be stored in the future. Yesterday I walked up to the fourth
floor of our library to look in one of the many, small
specialized libraries, like Classics and Geography, etc.
With a huge electronic database, all those books would be
accessible and intermingled, with good indexing, and the
chances of my finding some books would actuallybe enhanced.
So shelf-browsing might be diminished, but room/building
browsing will be enhanced.
--
Marsha Woodbury marsha-w@uiuc.edu
A simile is like a metaphor.
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 07:57:29 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: James O'Donnell <jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: Gopher and Copyright
(Posted to three lists: further posting permitted, esp. to gopher-manager
lists)
As e-editor of Bryn Mawr Classical Review, I have run across a
potentially troubling problem. Many gopher menus show assorted
e-journals, and BMCR is a staple on these lists. I discovered today that
one particular server was supplying our texts in a woefully out of date
and unauthorized version. They probably came from a one-time experiment I
authorized to take some of our files and make them available on WAIS at a
time when WAIS was the newest thing on the block. Since that time, we
have worked out a good arrangement with the e-text center at the
University of Virginia Library to maintain the only authorized current
archive of our files: that way, I only have to make corrections, changes,
etc., in one place.
But the site I found was using old files. I asked veronica to
check out the world of gopher tunnels for me, searching the word MAWR, and
got back five screenfuls of hits. I did not do an exhaustive check, but
the results were dismaying: many of the sites were clearly using old
files, and had apparently downloaded them from somewhere in a batch some
time ago, stuffed them in a local gopher hole, and forgotten about them.
Users of those gophers will think BMCR an odd publication that ceased some
time ago.
This is all around distressing and raises questions of control and
management of e-resources. As I think about it, it seems to me that this
is a place where copyright gives us still a useful way of thinking about
the problem, if not an immediate solution. By no stretch of the
imagination is it "fair use" to take all the existing files of a
publication (which expresses its claim to copyright with each issue, but
that claim is superfluous under the 1976 act; and we do have an ISSN for
the e-version to identify it further) and make them available for
unsupervised copying by others. It seems to me not only common courtesy,
but in fact an outright legal requirement, that if you wish to put files
on your machine for others to consult, you make certain that you have the
permission of the copyright holder to do so. This will ensure that the
copyright holder can express very legitimate concerns: for the
completeness, accuracy, and currency of the data, and for the uses to
which the material will be put.
But in the free and easy world of gopher today, my distinct
impression is that files fly around very casually. Some gophers are
carefully nurtured and managed, others are compost heaps. Individual
users can and should pay attention to how the gopher at their institution
that they rely on is managed and insist on quality control; and those of
us who create material that finds its way into gopher holes should not be
bashful about insisting -- for the benefit of authors, "publishers", and
readers alike -- that good management and respect for legal rights be a
part of the system.
Jim O'Donnell
Department of Classical Studies
University of Pennsylvania
jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 10:45:40 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: Jim Cerny <j_cerny@unhh.unh.edu>
Subject: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review example.
I think Jim O'Donnell identifies an important point when he
describes the discovery of outdated copies of the Bryn Mawr
Classical Review on servers on the Internet. And I suspect it
has been discussed somewhere before, among the thousands of
lists on the Internet, though I've not seen such a discussion.
You also don't have to go off your own campus to encounter this.
Our own 'war-story' here at Univ.N.H. involved a policy manual.
We experimented with several ways to put it on-line for general
reading and then announced it to the public. The experimentation
occurred, off and on, for about a year. Several months after
we went public we discovered by chance that someone had an old
version of the manual on their server (VideoTex in their case).
Unlike the BWCR situation, this was not copied from what we
regarded as the officially sanctioned electronic version and the
circumstances were totally innocent. When establishing their
VideoTex infobase they wanted to populate it with some interesting stuff,
so they scanned in the policy manual from what was then the official
paper copy. Except it regularly changes, of course.
Sooooo, while agreeing that this is a serious problem I am not yet
prepared to agree that copyright is the answer. Yes, we _ought_
to respect copyrights. But what if someone doesn't? Are you really
going to sue them? I've looked into copyright law in the past (from
the point of view of a cartographer producing maps) and concluded
then and now that it is mainly an effective tool for lawyers and those
with the financial assets to hire them. I'm inclined to appeal to
a sense of ethical handling of data rather than legal handling and to
look for some low-tech solutions.
What can I suggest? Well, I know checksums have been suggested in the
past as a way to deal with accuracy (in the sense of corruption or
alteration, not datedness). And in the case Jim O'Donnell brings up,
and which I illustrated with our policy manual, it is datedness that is
probably the main issue. I wonder if the inclusion of expiration dates
on all documents, similar to product expiration dates in the supermarket,
could work? After that date anyone using the document should not
regard it as trustworthy. Practical/impractical? Also, related to this is
the correction of errors of substance after the initial distribution.
In the traditional paper-publishing world this doesn't seem to work very
well. For example, the NYTimes and most other paper publications seem
to tuck correction notices in a variety of inconspicuous places (I don't
know how you'd ever expect to find them if doing microfilm research).
But electronic publication should offer more possibilities for replacing
original versions with corrected versions, so again I come back to the
idea of dated material.
Having said all this, I also try to look at this as someone who is now
building a Gopher server. As our Gopher grows over time (probably very
rapidly) how much time will we really have to Do The Right Thing, whether
that is to retrieve fresh copies of documents or to seek written
permission to make copies????
Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ.N.H.
jim_cerny@unh.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 10:46:29 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: Susan Hockey <hockey@zodiac.bitnet>
Subject: Reliability of electronic texts
Jim O'Donnell's note only serves to strengthen a view held by many
people who have been working in electronic texts and humanities
computing for some time. Regretfully, as electronic texts become
more common, the amount of junk seems to increase. This problem was noted
most strongly at the annual conference of the Association for Literary
and Linguistic Computing and the Association for Computers and the
Humanities last year in a panel on policy and control of electronic
texts. Quite independently, all the panelists (a humanities scholar,
a librarian who has run an electronic text center for years, a publisher,
and the chair of one of the sponsoring organizations) prepared similar
statements, saying that reliability is the one key issue for the future of
electronic texts. All these people had significant experience of working
with electronic texts for several years and for different purposes, and
their remarks were based on their own practical experiences with texts
from various sources.
We not seem yet to have found ways to tackle this problem. There are
recognized procedures for choosing acquisitions of print material, yet
for electronic texts, I sense, at least in some places, an attitude of
`it's in electronic form - therefore we must have it'. As Director of
the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities, I do not want to be
responsible for people doing work based on inferior or defective texts.
I want to provide texts which will last and which can become more and
more useful as we gain a better understanding of what can be done with them.
The question for this group is then: what constitutes a reliable text
and how do we know that it is reliable?
Here are a few thoughts for starters:
1. If the original is in print form, an accurate transcription which
means no typos, markup which enables the user to locate a reference exactly,
and a clear indication of the bibliographical source.
2. A markup scheme which enables the text to be used for many different
purposes and to link it to other electronic texts.
3. A revision history so that a record of changes to the text is available
for all users.
4. A method of validating or authenticating the text so that to ensure
that it is not a corrupted version.
Susan Hockey
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities
Rutgers and Princeton Universities
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 12:52:53 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
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From: Lee Jaffe <jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review
example.
In-Reply-To: (null)
While I think that the recent discussion about incorrect editions being
available raises a serious issue, I want to ask how is this different from
print? Do publishers worry that libraries haven't bought the latest
edition of their encyclopaedia? We have a lot of out-of-date, superseded,
even incorrect information in libraries. Sometimes it is sitting right
next to the latest and corrected edited, but often not. My question is
not strictly rhetorical. There is something to suggest that an electronic
text is regarded differently than a print one. This seems to be one of
those points where we have an opportunity to ask ourselves some
interesting questions about the nature of electronic publications and how
they differ from print. If it is ok to have 1988 Encyclopaedia Brittanica
on the shelves, why isn't it ok to have last year's Bryn Mawr Classical
Review on your gopher? Why should Bryn Mawr care and Britannica doesn't?
Why is it different?
-- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz
jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu
p.s. To answer the original question in its original sense, the sort of
problem described is supposed to be answered by distributed systems such
as gopher. Ideally, there should be only one official copy on a host
server to which everyone else points their clients. When Bryn Mawr
updates an edition, everyone is updated.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 14:29:40 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
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From: LYNCH@jade.bucknell.edu
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review
example.
One simple but obviously not foolproof way to combat the problem
pointed out by Jim O'Donnell is to prominently place a notice
in each electronic document stating where the guaranteed most
up-to-date version of this document can be found.
Anyone who felt it imperative to have the latest version would
then be able to get it easily. Clearly this is a more acceptable
solution for some types of documents than others.
Michael Lynch Systems Librarian, Bertrand Library
(717) 524-3565 Bucknell University
LYNCH@JADE.BUCKNELL.EDU Lewisburg, PA. 17837
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 14:30:10 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
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From: Stu Weibel <weibel@oclc.org>
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review
example.
Lee Jaffe's question is a good one ( incorrect editions ... how is this
different from print?)
Perhaps there is a quantitative difference in the ease with which
electronic texts can be compromised (it is generally clear when a print
text has been altered, and the user is warned... less so with
electronic texts).
But it is also true that a library has staff whose job it is to manage
collections, and it is almost certainly done more systematically in a
collection of artifacts such as books and serials than for a collection
of files that are managed by a computing facility.
Further, there is a kind of validation (publication dates, editions)
for printed material that is much softer for computer files (version,
file-write-date).
These are important differences that deserve the careful attention of
electronic publishers of all types.
stu
Stuart Weibel
OCLC Office of Research
stu@oclc.org
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 14:30:54 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
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From: Ann Okerson <ann@cni.org>
Subject: Gophers and Copyright (fwd)
Forwarded message:
From daemon Tue Apr 27 08:38:35 1993
From: Ann Okerson
Message-Id: <9304271238.AA14941@a.cni.org>
Subject: Gophers and Copyright
To: vpie-j@vtvm1.bitnet, listserv@uhupvm1.bitnet, humanist@brownvm.bitnet,
cni-copyright@cni.org
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 8:38:33 EDT
Cc: schcom-l@vtvm1.bitnet, ann (Ann Okerson)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Mr. O'Donnell's posting seems to address two different issues:
1. How the library or information technology community deals with electronic
publications, particularly "serial" ones (i.e., continuing indefinitely)
such as journals, newsletters, and so on.
He points to a problem that has come to our notice quickly as a result
of new tools such as Gopher. A search through Gopher sites does indeed
show a number of electronic serials that look dead but, in real life,
are living and breathing and kicking. Those who placed the initial
files have not taken care to keep them up to date and in that regard the
titles are no different than journals for which a library has cancelled
a subscription. The journal stays on the shelves but is no longer
current. One might well want a short run of an electronic journal on
one's electronic shelves, but the other problem is that there is no
equivalent of a general bibliographic or descriptive framework that
tells the reader who has found the partial run, that there is more to be
had by looking elsewhere.
2. Rights and ownership. The current climate for most electronic serials
is that they are free and wide sharing is encouraged. In an informal
survey we conducted in January out of ARL, about 3 dozen electronic
serial editors or moderators outlined their copyright or ownership
policies, if any, and identified their greatest wishes and concerns. In
every case there were three of equal weight:
A. That the work be widely shared and reproduced.
B. That the work be used with proper attribution and in its full
context.
C. That any reformatting, transfer of medium, or use for sale,
or any other treatment beyond that, should be done with consultation
and permission of the copyright holder of the e-journal.
In any case, people who place partial files, or any kind of copyrighted
files, without permission, on computer sites, seem (to me) to have
violated both common courtesy and the law.
*****
Possibly Mr. O'Donnell merges two different ideas in his posting. First,
he (and copyright holders in general) should be asked for permissions.
But he then goes on to offer the conditions under which he will grant
those permissions. One seems to be that the files be maintained complete
and up to date, incorporating corrections and revisions if/as they come
along. I'm not sure that he has the right to require this kind of
currency and commitment.
That would be the same as a journal publisher saying the subscriber
cannot subscribe unless she promises never to stop subscribing. Such a
condition looks and feels more like some of the licenses in which
purchasers return all back CDs if they stop the current subscription.
If he does have the authority as copyright holder to set conditions, how
would he enforce them? Any comments?
Ann Okerson/ARL
ann@cni.org
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 14:31:40 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Ken Laws <laws@ai.sri.com>
Subject: Active Text
In-Reply-To: <9304271451.AA21677@Sunset.AI.SRI.COM>
Concerning out-of-date texts:
There's no technological fix for obsolete information that
others have scanned from paper copies. With data files, though,
it would be possible to have "active documents" that include
code as well as text. (Alternatively, the code could be part
of every operating system or distribution channel. That seems
unlikely.) The code header could check its own date against
one from the host machine and could then prepend any needed
warning to the text that it provides. Or it could lock the
text entirely.
I'm reminded of an anecdote told by Grace Hopper. A private
company once stole her Navy COBOL compiler, stripping out
Navy identification and substituting their own. She made
sure that the next compiler release had hidden checks for
its own integrity before it would execute.
Adding executable code to text is trivial in Lisp, but could
be done easily enough in other environments. The code could
serve other functions as well, such as sending a message or
payment to the document author whenever the text is read.
-- Ken Laws
laws@ai.sri.com
-------
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 16:46:47 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Ann Okerson <ann@cni.org>
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review
In-Reply-To: <9304271827.AA23350@a.cni.org>; from "LYNCH@jade.bucknell.edu" at
Apr 27, 93 2:29 pm
Mr. Lynch's comment suggests that anyone should be able to retrieve a
full file and post or "publish" it anywhere on a public site. That it
is the editor's or copyright holder's responsibility to make that
possible. Surely the point of the the BMCR experience and message
is that anyone seeking to "re-publish" an entire file or work, should
ask permission to do it. Even apart from copyright law which requires
it, ordinary courtesy recommends it.
It's not clear why people are doing things in the electronic world that
they would not do in the print world at all. Publishing others' full
works and files without even notification...surely in this respect we
should treat information in *any* format (print, electronic, blue cheese)
in the same thoughtful fashion? Ann Okerson/ARL (ann@cni.org)
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 10:52:54 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Edith Wu <edith@uli.msmail.cuhk.hk>
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Maw
Jim O'Donnell's comments came timely. I have been pondering over how to
collect electronic journals for the gopher of my library.
As far as I can see, there are two ways to get the electronic journals. One
way is to subscribe personally on the behalf of the library and then post the
issues in the gopherspace. The other is simply to find a reputable gopher
and point mine to it. In regard to copyright, the case one is quite
straightforward. The copyright holder should be informed of the distribution
method and his permission should be sought. But, how about the case two?
Should the gopher administrator (or any other responsible person) write to
the copyright holder for permission? Is the administrator (or the
institution) of the "mother" gopher be liable for violating copyright?
As to the updatedness of the file, I do not see why the old files should not
remain there for public access even though the library chooses to cease
subscription to it. I do agree that the period coverage has to be made known
to users. This is same for the print journals.
Edith Wu
University Library
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
e-mail: edith-wu@cuhk.hk
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 10:53:42 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Guedon Jean-Claude <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Comments on Jim O'Donnell's Bryn Mawr Classical Review
In-Reply-To: <199304272054.AA28391@condor.CC.UMontreal.CA> from "Ann Okerson"
at Apr 27, 93 04:46:47 pm
>
> Mr. Lynch's comment suggests that anyone should be able to retrieve a
> full file and post or "publish" it anywhere on a public site. That it
> is the editor's or copyright holder's responsibility to make that
> possible. Surely the point of the the BMCR experience and message
> is that anyone seeking to "re-publish" an entire file or work, should
> ask permission to do it. Even apart from copyright law which requires
> it, ordinary courtesy recommends it.
>
> It's not clear why people are doing things in the electronic world that
> they would not do in the print world at all. Publishing others' full
> works and files without even notification...surely in this respect we
> should treat information in *any* format (print, electronic, blue cheese)
> in the same thoughtful fashion? Ann Okerson/ARL (ann@cni.org)
>
Ann's comments are much to the point, but they also raise an intriguing,
more general question, namely: how does technology affect people's
behavior with each other? Everyday, we see tranquil fathers and mothers
doing the weirdest things once placed behind a steering wheel. Likewise,
it seems that e-mail and e-communication induces new and strange forms
of deviance or simply discourteous behavior.
In the case raised here, it seems that some electronic device, like
a number given by the originating source to any copier would help
maintain good mirrors everywhere. Entropy being what it is supposed
to be, anarchic copying will inexorably lead to immense noise.
The automatic system I envision could simply the automatic adding of
a mention in the directory's heading. For example, copying the right
version of BMCR would lead to a directory named BMCR-approved-to-a_date.
This approbation could be transmitted, of course, to insure good mirrors
of mirrors, but everyone would then know what she is facing up to.
This said, I am thinking aloud and very conscious of the roughness
of this concept, a roughness that may amount to unworkability. But
someone will undoubtedly come up with a better mousetrap. And all of
this reflects the enormous changes brought to the "being" of texts
once the medium is changed.
Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say...
Jean-Claude Guedon
Universite de Montreal
guedon@ere.umontreal.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 16:24:26 EDT
Reply-To: Peter Scott <aa375@freenet.carleton.ca>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Peter Scott <aa375@freenet.carleton.ca>
Organization: The National Capital Freenet
Subject: The Strategic Information Systems Electronic Journal (fwd)
From D.W.Hartland@newcastle.ac.uk Wed Apr 28 08:30:12 1993
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 11:43:22 +0100 (BST)
From: Dave Hartland <d.w.hartland@newcastle.ac.uk>
To: new-lists list <new-lists@mailbase.ac.uk>
Subject: sis-ejournal list on mailbase
+-----------------------------------------+
| |
| A NEW LIST HAS BEEN STARTED ON MAILBASE |
| |
+-----------------------------------------+
It is called sis-ejournal
Its description reads;
The Strategic Information Systems Electronic Journal (SIS-
EJournal) aims to encourage, advance, and communicate
interdisciplinary thinking in the field of strategic
information systems, by means of fast electronic
publication.
To join this list send the command:
join listname firstname lastname
as the only text of an e-mail message to:
mailbase@uk.ac.mailbase
mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk (from outside the UK)
(Remember to replace firstname and lastname with your first name
and last name)
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 08:23:30 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Charles Forrest <libcgf@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Reliability of electronic texts
In-Reply-To: <9304282101.AA15793@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu>
Fascinating discussion. It's interesting to see the parallelisms and
divergencies between etexts and paper texts. Questions about authenticity,
the "ur-text," do published editions accurately reflect author's
intentions, &c. But perhaps most significantly for this discussion is the
underlying assumption "The most current is the best." And, in fact, the
corollary "Previous, outdated editions are pernicious."
Perhaps true for policy or technical manuals. But this is certainly not
the only category of material on the net. Many years ago in library school
we examined a critical edition of the poetry of Holderlin, a notorious
reviser of his own work, who often went back years later and made many
changes. The publishers (German, as I recall) had used an elaborate system
of typography to indicate the layers of text on pages facing a facsimile of
the manuscript. Fascinating.
The point was, would this happen with electronic word processing? Marked
up manuscripts are a thing of the past (maybe), gone the record on paper of
the struggles of a work in progress (Beethoven's manuscripts, for
example). You use your diskettes over again, recycle your "printouts," and
communicate electronically with your publisher, who sends your files straight
to the typesetting machine, or eventually, mounts them in a proprietary way
on the net. I see future researchers writing grants to develop text-hungry
worms that burrow through gopher space like cybernetic Hinman collators,
ferreting out variant editions, chewing up author's intentions for
breakfast, leaving a trail of definitive editions in their wakes...
FROM - Charles Forrest VOICE 404-727-0137
Woodruff Library FAX 404-727-0805
Emory University BITNET libcgf@emoryu1
Atlanta, GA 30322 INTERNET libcgf@unix.cc.emory.edu
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 08:24:09 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James O'Donnell <jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: Gopher/Copyright: Sage Advice
The discussion evoked by my anecdotal experience with tracking BMCR on
gopher has been delightful: much wisdom and a variety of points of view.
I have said to several individuals off-line since it appeared that what I
didn't know I thought until I heard what I had to say is that copyright,
wisely employed, can be one element in protecting *all* parties to the
scholarly communication process, from author to reader, with all the
intermediaries. If some academics have an Attitude about copyright these
days, it may be because we hear of it chiefly through efforts by the
commercial publishers to assert *their* rights in the system in ways that
seem to threaten others. A more communitarian approach is surely in
accord with the spirit and the letter of the law: we can all benefit if
we can see it that way.
Anyway, the highest ranking individual to offer advice on this topic since
yesterday came to me while I was reading a fascinating new book about the
transition from scribal to modern cultural in contemporary Yemen (*The
Calligraphic State* by Brinkley Messick [Berkeley, 1993]) that takes its
interest from the anomaly of Yemen never having been subject to Christian,
Western colonization, and so never had "our" ways imposed on or insinuated
into theirs. Fascinating book, but the author quoted an authority I've
known for a long time, and since I like these adumbrations of our concerns
in the worthies of old, I had to jot it down:
And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about,
alike among those who understand and those who have no interest
in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when
ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to
help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself.
Socrates in Plato *Phaedrus* 275d
Jim O'Donnell
U. of Pennsylvania
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 16:31:05 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Robin Peek, Simmons College" <rpeek@vmsvax.simmons.edu>
Subject: Call for papers
Call for Papers
Journal of the American Society
for Information Science
announces a Perspectives edition on
Electronic Publishing
ASIS is seeking contributions on key issues electronic
publishing. This issue will include essays on such topics as:
Defining electronic publishing; NREN and its impact on electronic
publishing, data integrety, and international considerations for
electronic publishing.
This JASIS issue is seeking contribution on a range of topics.
Length of essay is variable. The deadline for manuscripts is
September 1st 1993. This issue will be published in early 1994.
Topics of particular interest are:
Retrieval of electronic documents
Legal and policy issues
Lessons learned from electronic publishing projects
Models for electronic publishing
Electronic editing
How libraries cope with electronic publishing
Impact of electronic publishing on traditional publishing
Please send a short description of your submission by June 1st to
rpeek@vmsvax.simmons.edu or by mail: Robin Peek, Assistant
Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
Simmons College, Boston, MA, 02115. Additional information on
submission procedures will be given at that time.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 16:32:22 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: TED JENNINGS <emj69@albnyvms.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Reliability of electronic texts
About reliability, outdatedness, and one approach --
I know of no way to prevent "corruption" of an electronic text. Any
reader can alter any text and send it along in altered form. Know your
supplier.
I know of no way to be correct forever. Even sanctified texts
(Holy Scripture, Constitutions, Classics) are glossed and annotated and
debated. So worrying about "outdatedness" seems inappropriate; it can't
be prevented.
_EJournal_ is committed to the integrity of its texts as
distributed for the first time. We will not change the smallest
misprint, ever. If anyone, "subscriber" or not, wants to see what was
sent via e-mail to subscribers on "publication day," or at any time
since, they can send to our Fileserv for the issue they want. We can
and do publish rebuttals, corrections, comments; but what we send out is
what stays "in print," outdated or not.
We put notes about follow-up discussions in our "contents" file
on the Fileserv. This is a kind of "pre-pending" that lets
investigators trace a discussion thread that we didn't know was going to
spin out when the original issue was distributed. We have also
pre-pended notes about a change in an author's e-mail address, so that a
reader has a chance to avoid sending unreceivable mail to the author.
But we did not and will not fiddle with the original text.
_EJournal_ encourages posting and forwarding and sharing.
Unless there has been some sort of deliberate (or bit-level electronic)
corruption, the texts everyone sees are the originals, outdated as they
may be. If there are any questions, the as-transmitted text is always
retrievable from our Fileserv.
Ted Jennings, editor, _EJournal_
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 16:33:40 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Jim Cerny <j_cerny@unhh.unh.edu>
Subject: some comments on ora.com
Hi,
Just thought I'd state the obvious and point you to an interesting
example of a publisher grasping and using new technologies.
The various discussions on VPIEJ-L, and my other experiences,
indicate that traditional publishers have a steep learning curve to
understand what the new technologies mean for the way they do
business ... ranging from how they think of books and journals, to
how they edit them, to how they publish and market them.
An intereting example is O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. (ORA). I'll insert
the disclaimer here that I have no special knowledge of or connection with
this company ... I admire the several books they publish that I've
actually touched ... but most of my remarks are drawn from the
summer 1993 catalog they just mailed out. ORA specializes in publishing
on topics such as Unix tools, Unix system administration, X-windows
and Motif nitty-gritty stuff, etc. It is only the success of Ed Krol's
"The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog" that is likely to make
them known to a wider audience (they say 125,000 copies were in print
within 5 months).
It would be easy to say that such a technical publisher has an advantage
in understanding new technologies. And I think that is true. But I
also think we could find more than a few computing publishers who seem
blind to these technologies.
These are things that impress me that ORA is doing as a publisher
(I don't claim that individually they are unique to ORA, but
collectively they are impressive):
* They have their catalog available via Gopher (gopher.ora.com).
And this is not just a bare-bones catalog. For example, it includes
interesting colophon information on each book. And it includes
key-word searching by book title and by book tables of contents!
* They have a system for ordering their books via e-mail!
* There is one programming book that comes with a CD with the
code discussed, ready to be used in several common environments.
* They are involved in sponsoring the Internet Talk Radio experiment
in desktop broadcasting.
* They offer one book (with more to follow) in SGML source for
corporate licensing.
* Author Ed Krol states in his preface that except for the legal
contrcts, his book was essentially written and produced by
using e-mail over the Internet.
Finally, in their catalog, they make this statement worth thinking about:
"And suddenly, we know what online books are all
about: not translating printed books to the screen,
but creating user interfaces to large, dynamic
bodies of information." [p. 8]
-- Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ.N.H.
jim_cerny@unh.edu
</j_cerny@unhh.unh.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></emj69@albnyvms.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></rpeek@vmsvax.simmons.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></libcgf@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></new-lists@mailbase.ac.uk></d.w.hartland@newcastle.ac.uk></aa375@freenet.carleton.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></aa375@freenet.carleton.ca></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></edith@uli.msmail.cuhk.hk></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></ann@cni.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></laws@ai.sri.com></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet> </ann@cni.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></weibel@oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jaffe@scilibx.ucsc.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></hockey@zodiac.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></j_cerny@unhh.unh.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></mcwg9235@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></browphyl@isu.edu></browphyl@ucs.isu.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></nking@wam.umd.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></hulbertla@sluvca.slu.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></hulbertla@sluvca.slu.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></weibel@oclc.org></lux@dmrhrz11.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></brendan@lisa.cygnus.com></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></weibel@oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></hoymand@joe.uwex.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpw@sansfoy.lib.virginia.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
__________________________________________________________________
James Powell