20.135 of indexes & wikilore

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 135.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 06:24:03 +0100
         From: lachance_at_chass.utoronto.ca
         Subject: Of indexes and wikilore

Willard

I recently came across the following bit of ephemera which reminded me of
the recent Wikipedia thread on Humanist.

Cutely illustrated with sketches of "Miss Findsit" (in own depiction with
deerstalker cap, magnifying glass and flashlight), this how to guide to
using the encyclopedia's index contains a testimonial letter which, given
the recent wiki thread, I suspsect will amuse some readers of Humanist:

<quote>
"Recently I had to write an English research paper on Edgar Allan Poe ...
and afer searching through a number of books without any good results, I
turned to my American and found all I needed. I might add that it would be
well to advise our sales friends to urge their customers to learn to use
the index volume. In the case of my research on Poe -- I found what I need
ony after I used the index."
Sincerely,
Cecil D. Harper Jr.
Cookeville,Tenn.
<cit>1960 Americana Corporation A-907 1-60-100M</cit>
</quote>

And Stacy Schiff ("Wikipedia takes on the experts" The New Yorker (July
31, 2006) p. 43) writes:

<quote>As was the Encyclopedie, Wikipedia is a combination manifesto and
reference work. [...] Wikipedia offers endless opportunities for
self-expression. It is the love child of reading groups and chat rooms, a
second home for anyone who has written an Amazon review."</quote>

FYI the discussion attached to the Wikipedia entry on "digital humanities"
reveals the beginnings of an exchange on the position on the naming and
overlap between the field of humanities computing and digital humanities
[the talk centres on the merging of the entry on humanities computing with
that on digital humanities].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Digital_Humanities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities_Computing
Received on Thu Aug 03 2006 - 02:07:57 EDT