7.0001 On Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts (4/132)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 11 May 1993 14:53:51 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0001. Tuesday, 11 May 1993.
(1) Date: Sat, 8 May 93 07:07:31 PDT (42 lines)
From: 6500card%ucsbuxa@hub.ucsb.edu (Cheryl A. Cardoza)
Subject: Gopher Intertextuality
(2) Date: Sat, 08 May 93 15:28:23 EDT (32 lines)
From: Douglas Greenberg <SDGLS@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts
(3) Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 23:22:12 +0300 (EET-DST) (28 lines)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL (Judy Koren)
Subject: RE: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts
(4) Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:17:08 BST (30 lines)
From: Donald A Spaeth <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK>
Subject: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 May 93 07:07:31 PDT
From: 6500card%ucsbuxa@hub.ucsb.edu (Cheryl A. Cardoza)
Subject: Gopher Intertextuality
This is in response to the recent debate about the reliability of
texts on gopher because of the multiplication of texts. Recently
Donald Spaeth made a good point about the reader's perspective of
the whole issue when he said that responsible scholars prefer
authoritative editions. Kyle Barger and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
both responded to this point by claiming that it is not the
gopher systems which are at fault in these matters, and besides,
there are numerous text versions of say Shakespeare and the bible.
My response to this as a literary scholar is that there came a
point when the prolification of unauthorized and often blatantly
mutated versions of texts made scholarship difficult and unap-
petizing. The institutional response to this was to work out
standardized methods for building an authoritative text. Good
scholars go to those volumes to do their work.
The problem with gopher texts is that they are somewhat ephemeral
and they don't always come tagged with the year of "publication"
(I suppose in cyberspace it might be better to have the day of
publication. Since there is an uncertainty as to which text came
first in this schema, it seems like a good idea to start making
some rules about how to identify texts in the first place.
At any rate, there's no reason whatsoever why we should repeat
the mistake we made with published (on paper) works. That is,
we need not wait until scholarship becomes difficult and unap-
petizing before we act. Why not institute some sort of control
now instead of waiting until this problem becomes so big, we must
solve it or perish in the attempt.
Cheryl
Cardoza
University of California
Santa Barbara
Department of English
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------40----
Date: Sat, 08 May 93 15:28:23 EDT
From: Douglas Greenberg <SDGLS@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts (2/79)
The discussion of gopher and texts and copyright is an extremely important
one, whose complications and implications are likely to increase as the
number of users of e-texts increases and the number of available texts
grows and as the quality of tools like Veronica improves (Now that we have
archie and veronica, can jughead be far behind?). The point that needs
emphasis, however, is that despite the obvious fact that we have many versions
of texts in the print environment too, we also have standards and mechanisms
for the evaluation of the authenticity of printed text. We also have some
way of judging the quality of a given text based on who the publisher is.
Generally, we will have more confidence in a text reproduced by, let us say,
Cambridge University Press than one reproduced by Vanity Press, Inc. On the
net, though, we lack this sign of quality and authenticity because everyone
can literally self-publish not only her or his own texts but those of others
as well. We desperately need on the the net the value-added that publishers
provide in the print world. Until we have that (as well as a fuller
elaboration of fair use in the electronic environment) it will be very
difficult for us to have the same confidence in material we get electronically
as we now do in material we acquire from reputable publishers of printed texts.
Douglas Greenberg
Vice President
American Council of Learned Societies
228 E. 45th St., 16th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel:212 697 1505 X133
Fax:212 949 8058
BITNET:sdgls@cunyvm
INTERNET:sdgls@cunyvm.cuny.edu
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: Sat, 8 May 1993 23:22:12 +0300 (EET-DST)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL (Judy Koren)
Subject: RE: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts (2/79)
Re. Donald Spaeth's plea for "pointers" to the One Authorized Text
rather than multiple copies of it: the World Wide Web (WWW) aims
to provide at least a partial solution, being a hypertext system in
which each user is encouraged to create personal "links" to
documents of interest, wherever on the net they may be, rather
than copying them locally (its motto, as it were, is: don't *get*
it, get *to* it). You need your own client software to do so;
but then you need a gopher client to do a lot of what gopher can
do, too. Most public-access WWW sites I've seen are pretty tepid:
they look just like gophers; but U. Kansas just came up with a
really cute application called Lynx, which is the first I've seen
that actually gets the "look and feel" of hypertext on a public-access
site. QUOTING FROM MEMORY!! - the site is ukanaix.ukans.edu, login
either lynx or www. I don't think it'll let you create personal
links, though: for that it'd need a separate account for every
user (like the freenets have); but it's a nice demo. of WWW.
Of course that still begs the question of whether people will
be prepared to rely on the network for important documents.
The advantages are most obvious when the document is frequently
updated; it quickly gets to be a pain to keep track of such things
and re-copy them every 2 or 3 months; a customized menu set with
direct links to the updated copy is much better.
Judy Koren, Haifa, Israel.
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Mon, 10 May 93 10:17:08 BST
From: Donald A Spaeth <GKHA13@CMS.GLASGOW.AC.UK>
Subject: 6.0715 Rs: Gopher and Copyright and Variant Texts (2/79)
Kyle Barger and Michael Sperburg-McQueen both make the same point:
there's already a lot of variation about, and the scholar has to cope
with it. I couldn't agree more. This occurs in early modern historical
documents just as much published texts. I spent yesterday evening reading
four witnesses' statements on the same event and trying to re-construct
what happen. There are four versions of the Compton religious census
for Wiltshire, and I can think of three scholars who have devoted considerable
time to comparing them.
I was making two points, one of degree and one of validation.
Electronic reproduction multiples the version problem many times.
Books and articles are published, and the process ensures that both
the publisher and the author/editor have an opportunity to check the text
before it is printed. The fact that this process was not available in,
say, the 17th century when the King James Bible and Shakespeare plays were
produced isn't necessarily relevant since most of us use modern editions
which *do* rely on the process. Electronic reproduction removes the publisher
and enables texts to be "reprinted" without reference to an author/editor.
In other words, I am not convinced that the analogy with Shakespeare
plays and the Bible is a good one. Perhaps Kyle has the answer, though:
some servers will come to be recognised as reliable "publishers",
perhaps because they will only accept documents directly from their
authors.
Donald Spaeth