----------(1)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 09:08:11 -0700
From: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com>
Subject: Re: Cost per title... (Albert Henderson)

Tuesday, October 31, 2000, 8:34:58 AM, you wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 09:16:58 -0500
From: Albert Henderson <NobleStation@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: Cost per title... (Dan Lester)

Thanks for your question.

Style manuals generally are attempting to
embrace the new technology. The technology -- which
was not designed to meet the norms of science and
scholarship -- has not made it easier.
----

That is a most interesting comment.  As you may know, the web was
first designed specifically to serve scholars working from CERN.  The
fact that it served them so well led to the wider implementation of
the web for scholarship as well as other purposes. Yes, the web has
gone into many areas that Tim Berners-Lee never imagined in the late
eighties, and it will go into many more; I'm sure that printing has
gone well beyond Gutenberg's original plans, too.

----
The technology
that cannot deliver is not a desirable substitute.
----

The technology certainly CAN deliver.  Just as with print
technologies, things can be done well or can be done poorly.  Of
course there are plentiful examples of both in each technology, and in
many other technologies as well.

----
My point in the posting quoted below is that the
precision required by a style manual that asks for
the exact location of a quotation is an effort at
excellence.
----

Actually, style manuals don't require precision.  They require that as
much precision as possible be used.  My previously cited examples of
citing oral interviews, telephone conversations, films, television
news broadcasts, and so forth, continue to illustrate that.

----
Excellence should be a priority of the
academy. Editors and authors strive for excellence.
Readers expect it.
----

I have no argument with those three sentences.

----
Put it this way, if a source uses a particular
word or phrase in several contexts, page numbers
are necessary to identify the distinctions.
----

Well, the distinctions may need to be made, but page numbers aren't the
only way of doing so. They are ONE way, the way based on the
technology that we've all used for centuries. Of course even with the
traditional technology there may be cases where distinctions may need
to be made even within a page.

In addition, the fine points that you identify above are genuine, but
are the exception in the total span of scholarship, although they are
not uncommon in some fields, such as literature.

----
A URL for an HTML chapter is a poor substitute for
a page-citation.
----

Yes, it is, particularly in the field of literature.  However,
electronic books or articles don't limit you to chapters alone. It is
easy to make links to individual sections, parts, paragraphs, or
whatever is relevant.  The links can be either within an HTML page, or
to a number of pages, which could even be the equivalent of "pages"
within a printed work.

As you point out, this doesn't seem to yet be commonly done, but it
certainly could be.  The burden of this, of course, is on the editors
and publishers who should be striving for excellence. This is
something that seems to be done well in the laws and codes that have
been published electronically, and others could certainly learn from
those examples.

In addition, a vast number of scholarly works that are on the web now
are page images, frequently in .pdf format, so they have all of the
attributes of the printed work.

----
As a matter of fact, I consider
URLs to be ephemeral. They should be avoided if
there is a print alternative.
----

Once again, URLs aren't ephemeral because of the technology involved.
Ones that are ephemeral are so because of inadequate management of the
website, something that should be overseen by the editor or publisher
to assure that they don't change.  And, if they do change, links
(cross-references) should be made to the new location. This will
require editors and publishers to become more technologically savvy so
that they don't accept "we have to do that" when it really means "it
is the easiest for us techies to do it this way".

Also, more of us, and particularly those providing scholarly
resources, should be using PURLs.  http://www.purl.org/ will provide
more information to those who aren't familiar with it.  These
Persistent URLs can assure you that a URL is not ephemeral.

----
In short, a primitive technology has no place
dictating style when the result is second-rate.
----

Once again, the technology isn't dictating style and isn't second rate
_per_se_.  Some implementations of the technology are second rate or
worse.  But, so are some implementations of print technology.

This is not a techology problem, but a people problem.

cheers

dan

--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan@RiverOfData.com
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com

----------(2)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 11:32:50 -0600
From: Peter Picerno <ppicerno@mail.astate.edu>
Subject: Re: Cost per title... (Albert Henderson)

Mr. Henderson:

If I percieve your remarks correctly, then, we are to eschew all electronic
searching, databases, sources such as Lexis, STN, MLA Bibliography,
PsychInfo, etc. because of the fact that when quoting them in a paper or
article one is unable to find a mere page number in accordance with rules
set up by Kate Turabian and others?
Excellence comes in many different form, sir, and I am not sure that all of
the inhabitants of the academy will rush to cancel all of its electronic and
CD-ROM subscriptions in order to apply with the citation rules of style
manuals.

Peter Picerno

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 09:16:58 -0500
From: Albert Henderson <NobleStation@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Re: Cost per title... (Dan Lester)

Thanks for your question.

Style manuals generally are attempting to
embrace the new technology. The technology -- which
was not designed to meet the norms of science and
scholarship -- has not made it easier. The technology
that cannot deliver is not a desirable substitute.

My point in the posting quoted below is that the
precision required by a style manual that asks for
the exact location of a quotation is an effort at
excellence. Excellence should be a priority of the
academy. Editors and authors strive for excellence.
Readers expect it.

Put it this way, if a source uses a particular
word or phrase in several contexts, page numbers
are necessary to identify the distinctions. A
URL for an HTML chapter is a poor substitute for
a page-citation. As a matter of fact, I consider
URLs to be ephemeral. They should be avoided if
there is a print alternative.

In short, a primitive technology has no place
dictating style when the result is second-rate.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>