The humanities: Text producers, text products and online text

1. Department of History The humanities: Text producers, text products and online text Gunner Lind Department of History, Saxo-Institute, University of Copenhagen http://staff.hum.ku.dk/lind lind@hum.ku.dk

2. Department of History Humanities communication as social structure • Compared with other scientific fields, humanists are few. • They are also very poor. • So the scholarly market has low commercial interest. • Activities are often subsidized. • Some branches have a large non-scholarly audience and commercial potential. • Here scholarly and non-scholarly communication may be difficult to distinguish from each other. • In-house information technology competence varies widely but is relatively low for the field as a whole.

3. Department of History Varieties of communication • Communication in preparation of research. • Communication during the research process. • Journals, of course. • Humanists are also concerned with a large field of other activities. • These can be combined under one heading: books.

4. Department of History Before and during the research process • Internet based communication has completely taken this field over, as everywhere else. • Humanists will use new opportunities (Web 2.o). If they like them. • But they are not likely to desire such tools much or adopt them eagerly. (Compared with other fields of scholarship.)

5. Department of History Economies of communication: journals • Some journals are financed by sales and managed in the conventional way by commercial publishers. • They change media these years together with the rest of the portfolio of the publisher. • Many journals are partly or heavily dependent on economic support. • They are likely to move to electronic publication in the near future. • Problems during the change highlight a need for innovation in ‘green’ journal publishing.

6. Department of History Kleio (1978) p$status=dm/firstname=Simon/surname=Harward/relation=son/burialdate=2 Apr 1620 relp$status=m/title=Mr/surname=Harward/occupation=prebendary p$status=fd/firstname=Sibill/surname=Cole/relation=wife /burialdate=18 May 1620 relp$status=m/title=Mr/firstname=William/surname=Cole p$status=fd/firstname=Anne/surname=Trussell/relation=daughter /burialdate=24 Sept 1620 relp$status=m/title=Mr/firstname=William/surname=Trussell /occupation=clerke p$status=md/firstname=James/surname=Sutton/occupation=belringer /burialdate=16 Nov 1620 The book field • Electronic technologies have been used in the ‘book field’ for a long time. • Usage and range of solutions is expanding. • But the wish list in terms of social-technical solutions is still long.

7. Department of History Aspects of humanist text products • Long half-life. • Massive external hypertextuality. • Aspects of the book • Long! • Massive internal hypertextuality. • Internal navigation tools. • There are many varieties of the book, many with special technical needs.

8. Department of History The long life of humanist scholarship • Scholarly texts are considered current for 10 to 20 years. • Good work can be extensively used for more than a century. • Only very well-known and widespread file formats are useful for humanists.

9. Department of History External hypertextuality • Footnotes are the traditional tool of external hypertextuality. • Web publishing extends and automates external hypertextuality. • This will be a major tool for humanist scholarship. MONARCHY, UNIFORM AND THE RISE OF THE FRAC 1760-1830*P Mansel - Past & Present, 1982 - Past Present Soc... 279. Page 3. MONARCHY, UNIFORM AND THE FRAC I760-1830 IO5 a bastion ... 41. Page5. MONARCHY, UNIFORM AND THE FRAC I760-1830 107 quis de ...Citeret af 3 - Relaterede artikler - Søgning på nettet - Alle 2 versioner

10. Department of History Long text online • Hardware limitations are gradually dissolving. • Segmentation is a problem. • Long texts refer to themselves (‘internal hypertextuality’). • Long texts need navigational aids. • Well establish file formats do not deliver. • Too few and simple index tools. • Free text search does not work.

11. Department of History Varieties of the book • Text edition • Source edition • Monograph • Synthesis/survey • Textbook • Coffee table book • Documentary entertainment The logo of Danske Magazin (1745 –

12. Department of History Fragile solutions go beyond the book • Documentary entertainment: • The Royal Danish Collections http://www.rosenborgslot.dk/ • Text edition: • Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter • http://sks.dk/ • Source edition: • Mitteldeutsche Selbstzeugnisse der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges • http://www.mdsz.thulb.uni-jena.de/sz/index.php • Tragic beauties.

13. Department of History Prognosis • Web 2.0 tools: humanists as followers. • Most scholarly journals stop physical publication at some point in the near future. • Book matter will move more slowly to the net, especially as republication. • Continuing and hard to solve problems with the technical format of book matter. • Dependence on the non scholarly world for many aspect of solutions. There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite reach the honey. A. A. Milne (1926)