From hunsucker@mail1.remote.uva.nl Sun Mar 28 06:55:19 1999 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id GAA24996 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 06:55:18 -0800 Received: from mail1.remote.uva.nl (mail1.remote.uva.nl [145.18.29.15]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id GAA16138 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 06:55:18 -0800 Received: from 486sx2 (uva139.remote.uva.nl [145.18.29.139]) by mail1.remote.uva.nl (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id QAA00635 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 16:50:48 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990328160738.007f26a0@mail.uva.nl> X-Sender: mdw10543@mail.uva.nl X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 16:07:38 +0200 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: Hunsucker Subject: Re: Evaluating web sources; Internet pollution etc. In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19990327072526.010b2410@127.0.0.1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable May I just add an observation in connection with this thread, as an addition to the mostly very sensible remarks already offered -- particularly by someone who has himself far more than most of us already earned his spurs in this area, Ross Scaife, who wrote: "the right response to the changing environment in which we find ourselves is to _shape it_ by producing the kinds of materials we'd like to see used and emulated.". Which is not to say that there isn't some mechanism necessary to 'reproduce' in the network environment those roles tradi- tionally performed (not perfectly, but obviously more or less to the satisfaction of most players in the academic game) by the peer review process, editors and editorial boards, and publishers. But what then? In the paper world, this structure was not enough. Certainly already in the eighteenth century it was clear that it wasn't enough that scholars/teachers produced scientifically "adequate" (to resort to Edgar Krentz's term) materials which the publishers/printers, having judged them (commercially) viable, then put on the market. And as again Ross Scaife mentioned, the fact that something was printed didn't necessarily imply a guarantee of its quality (or appropriateness for a given academic purpose). Those who managed the educational institutions saw a place in the scheme of things for a service which would (in cooperation with the teachers/scholars -- i.e., globally seen, the producers and consumers of the materials) select out of all the available publications those which were necessary c.q. useful for the activities of the institution; would describe, arrange and provide both "descriptive" and subject access to them; would make them physically accessible in a logical fashion; would preserve them and administer their use; would offer (to students and others) expert advice and instruction in finding, choosing and using them. These institutions (that is to say, my institution and all of your institutions) have invested over the decades many billions of dollars/francs/pounds/guilders, and are still investing piles of money, in this service -- not only in materials, but even more in personnel, expenditures. And guess what. Those same institutions have in recent years all over the world decided that those same services and concen- trations of accumulated expertise which they had been financing for managing information acquisition and access in printed form are also where the money should go, and the further specialized expertise should be concentrated, for managing acquisition of and access to qualitatively 'adequate' information resources in digital (including via Internet) form. And not to forget: at least for the foreseeable future, for *integrating* the selection and management of paper-based and electronic information offerings. I am, of course, talking about your own university and college libraries. I don't know how many of you are aware -- but I do know that a few of you are certainly aware -- of the amount of effort and money which research libraries (individual, but also via consortia, national and international organizations, and other cooperative arrangements) the last few years have been putting into finding effective, structural solutions to just the sort of problems now raised in this thread. Ranging from such technical matters as international standards for submerged "metadata" in Internet documents (now being implemented by us and others), through many different aspects of "digital library" creation, usage licensing guidelines, digital archiving systems, library-based Internet publishing initiatives, to enhanced user (and here I'm thinking first of students) support and instruction in connection with Internet resources. And apart from all that's already going on in practice and in the planning stage, for anyone interested in a more theoretical approach to the question of how one can in the academic context best approach the problems of the "new information environment", I'd recommend reading the article "Library functions, scholarly communication, and the foundation of the digital library: laying claim to the control zone", by Ross Atkinson (who is still, I think, Associate Librarian at the Cornell Univ. Libr.), in _The library quarterly_ 66.3 (July 1996), p. 239-265. He takes the discussion back to the famous speech which the philosopher Jos=E9 Ortega y Gasset delivered in Madrid on 20 May 1935 (not in Paris in 1934, as Atkinson was led to believe) on the essential "mission" of the librarian in facilitating the academic endeavor - but is above all concerned with the long-term future. I don't myself agree with all aspects of his vision, but it's one of the most thought-provoking contributions on this subject of which I'm aware. Regards, ~~~~~~~~~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /| //| Dr. R. Laval Hunsucker /#| Bibliotheek (Humaniora / UB), Univ. v. Amsterdam /#| Amsterdam - Nederland [E.U.] /#| hunsucker@uba.uva.nl /#| r.l.hunsucker@hum.uva.nl /#| tel. (31-20) 525-2498 ; 525-2550 ; 525-2477 /#| fax (31-20) 525-2311 ; 525-2544 /#| [ _Aiolos_: ] /#| /# ----------------------------------------------------------------- /################################################################## /////////////////// / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / .