Comments on Scholarship and New Media
Roy Rosenzweig’s article, “Crashing the System? Hypertext and Scholarship on American Culture,” brings up many benefits of the internet for historians, as well as some possible negatives. Rosenzweig describes the internet’s tools as “clunky” when it comes to certain field standards such as footnoting. The footnoting problem is one I have been trying to solve, because as an historian, I have to footnote everything. However, I have not figured out how to cite properly within a website while maintaining the design. Despite the drawbacks, Rosenzweig makes sure that readers understand the benefits of publishing online. Publishing in paper journals limits the amount of space an author can use to present his/her case. However, when the information is online, the author can allow access to full copies of images, films, and papers through links from the article. Historians should take full advantage of this amazing benefit, even if it does require them us to be historians, designers, and programmers, all in one.
Rosenzweig also points out the difficulty of establishing standards for scholarship online. How do you evaluate an article that has links throughout it, leading to new subsections and information? Rosenzweig notes that it is difficult to determine if an online article is well organized or not, because of issues such as the links. Should new standards be created for judging online articles as opposed to articles in paper journals? Is it possible to even create standards for something that seems to have no limit in design and organization?
David A. Bell’s comments in his article, The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship, about reading an e-book ring true. He states, “I start reading, but while the book is well written and informative, I find it remarkably hard to concentrate. I scroll back and forth, search for keywords, and interrupt myself even more often than usual to refill my coffee cup, check my e-mail, check the news, re- arrange files in my desk drawer. Eventually I get through the book, and am glad to have done so. But a week later I find it remarkably hard to remember what I have read.” I have found similar issues with reading long texts online. Perhaps it is the ease with which I can open another browser window and check my email, or maybe it is just that reading online really does make my eyes tired. Either way, I would very much prefer having a hard copy of what I am reading (though the benefits of free online reading are obvious). I know that I am not alone in thinking this, so I am sure that the fate of paper books and journals are secure.