Topical Session B: New Models For Electronic Publication/Dissemination: Discussion Reports

A. KEY QUESTIONS

• What should we do without in preparing for a digital future and can we use a business model?
• What are some ways to resolve the tension between the individual creative activity of the scholars working in new media versus the constraints imposed by institutions (resource allocation , recognition, and the obligations of libraries to preserve this material)?
• As we look at new models, we see new roles for authors, publishers, and libraries; we want to know how to redefine the author and publisher in the next ten years. Will there be lots of collaboration, new ways of scholarship?
• What do we need now and is it already being done by someone else? How do we know what is out there?
• We should investigate the relationship between the needs and rights of libraries and the needs of universities.
• If we put aside disadvantages and concentrate on advantages, what is the role of NINCH in exploiting them?
• What should the role of providers like libraries, archives, etc., be? In order to do the scholarship, what should they provide?
• What ought to be the role of scholarly societies in the production and dissemination of scholarly works?
• What is the place of the original physical object in digital collections? Is the digitization of materials going to be detrimental to preservation and protection of materials?

B. REPORTS ON DISCUSSIONS

1. NINCH's Role (two tables):

to be a resource library database for funded and independent research that is completed and in-progress;

to be a mediator/lobbyist to negotiate the open-source needs of the users and the closed-source desires of the creators to share content and expertise;

to coordinate with professional societies in the production of mechanisms for websites in the humanities, to be vetted.

to coordinate activities of university librarians to archive humanities resources on the web, understanding that they are ephemeral.

 

2. Role of Scholarly Societies in the production, dissemination, and sustenance of electronic scholarship:

could play a key role in creating awareness of different electronic resources, both on the web and off. But: a) avoiding seeming to support a single party line in the discourse of a field, and b) libraries may also play a key role in resource identification, especially across disciplines.

have to find their own balance between service to membership and service to a wider public.

could potentially serve as a) publishers of electronic resources; b) funders and channelers of support for projects that serve the wider discipline; c) sustainers of worthy projects by making such resources last beyond the active lifetimes of their projecters.

3. Tools: A need exists for collaborating projects between scholars and publishers to develop coordinating tools and and coded tools.

4. Authors & Institutions: How can the inherent tension between the creators/authors of multi-media material and the institutions that have the resources, and who accord recognition and professional advancement to the authors, be mediated or resolved? NINCH might act to clarify the issues around this tension, create standards for evaluating multi-media projects, and act as an advocate for the interests of the authors.

5. Re-Envision Intellectual Property: Networked digital resources presuppose a radically different vision of scholarship and collecting which is inherently collaborative. This challenges us to re-envision intellectual property.

6. New Models for Authorship/New Audiences: We need to recognize the emergence of new models of scholarly authorship and the new audiences for web-based projects. With the recognition of the move away from the monograph, it will be easier to reward these new authors and perhaps to find additional funding. New models might include scholarly commentary on a text or object that has built-in controversy (the Talmudic model); thinking about a project like a museum exhibit, which contains serious scholarly interpretation but allows the reader/visitor to learn at different levels of interest; and collaboration among humanists similar to the way scientists work in a lab setting.

7. Humanities Strategic Plans for Digital Development: We want to fund a set of models or strategic plans for the humanities that encompass the processes and policies coming from professional societies or other entities. NINCH and ACLS could help coordinate this by gathering these models. We can then act locally within our frameworks to maximize our voice in setting priorities.

8. Preservation/Access: Initial question about preservation or resources: the problem is that there's a perception that digitization means you don't need originals; and people don't understand the value of the originals; also think that the project is a case study evaluation of a university project to understand the resource allocation and systems of evaluation over the long term.

How do we know what is out there? How do we get to information? And once you get it all how do you find the good stuff? Is there a role for a clearinghouse or professional associations to do quality control? Also it is important that resources be put into an institutional system like library so that they are accessible on the web, not free floating.