Reply to J. Erickson
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 15:36:39 -0500
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From: mgk3k@faraday.clas.virginia.edu
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Cc: janete@umich.edu
Subject: ETDs revisited at TEI10: a reply to J. Erickson
I have just read with interest Janet Erickson's contribution to the TEI10
conference (underway at this moment at Brown) on the subject of electronic
theses and dissertations (see
http://www.stg.brown.edu/webs/tei10/tei10.papers/erickson.html for a copy
of Ms. Erickson's paper). As an overview of current activity the paper is
very useful; her discussion of SGML in relation to ETDs is incisive.
However, I am writing to correct a significant mis-representation of my own
work and views.
I do so here, on ETEXTCTR-L, because Ms. Erickson refers to my participation
in this list's discussion of ETDs last August, and because she quotes from
remarks I posted to the list at that time. Specifically she refers to a
portion of the paper entitled "Electronic Theses and Dissertations in the
Humanities," which I read at the 1997 ACH-ALLC conference and which I
reposted here. Ms. Erickson writes the following:
--
"To him [Kirschenbaum] the term ETD applies to:
' ...any thesis or dissertation that is submitted, archived, and distributed
solely or at least primarily in an electronic format. Such a dissertation
might be written on any conceivable subject, and need avail itself of no
method of presentation or organization that could not be duplicated on
paper....a dissertation which is not only submitted, archived and accessible
solely in an electronic format, but which is also self-conscious of its
medium and which uses an electronic environment to support scholarship which
could not be undertaken in print. (M. Kirschenbaum, ETEXTCTR, 12 Aug 1997)'
"I have already mentioned the alarm that Kirschenbaum's listing of e-theses
caused due to the varied media and formats it encompassed. It is my
impression that Kirschenbaum's idea of exclusively electronic projects is
not what is currently proposed within the more mainstream ETD efforts. The
need for assorted and potentially outmoded software to interpret these
projects restricts rather than enhances their accessibility. I am aware of
no responses in ETEXTCTR to Kirschenbaum's posting."
--
My views are represented by Ms. Erickson as extremist ones, views which
engender "alarm." Indeed, as presented here, my views are blantently
self-contradictory, suggesting on the one hand that an ETD "need avail
itself of no method of presentation or organization that could not be
duplicated on paper," while on the other hand that they ought "to support
scholarship which could not be undertaken in print."
By truncating and compressing my posted remarks (note the elipses), Ms.
Erickson has erased that portion of my paper's key distinction between two
very different types of ETDs. The full quotation from my paper, as included
in my original ETEXTCTR-L posting, is as follows:
"Most broadly, I will say that this term [ETD] applies to any thesis or
dissertation that is submitted, archived, and distributed solely or at least
primarily in an electronic format. Such a dissertation might be written on
any conceivable subject, and need avail itself of no method of presentation
or organization that could not be duplicated on paper. The relevant contexts
for discussions of ETDs of this sort are primarily library science, document
encoding, and information retrieval. Now in addition to this "plain vanilla"
model, electronic thesis or dissertation can also mean something like
hypertext or multimedia dissertation -- that is, a dissertation which is not
only submitted, archived and accessible solely in an electronic format, but
which is also self-conscious of its medium and which uses an electronic
environment to support scholarship which could not be undertaken in print.
Examples of this might include a dissertation consisting of a set of
non-linear hypertext documents, or a dissertation containing not only of
text or perhaps text and illustrations, but also digital sound, video,
animations, and interactive three-dimensional models. Here ETDs must be
discussed not only in terms of library science and related fields, but also
in relation to much larger questions about the nature of scholarly work
dissertations have traditionally been expected to perform. In other words,
for some, ETDs raise questions of decorum."
I do not blame Ms. Erickson for being "alarmed" at the "idea" that the term
ETD is to be equated exclusively with hypertext or multimedia; however, as
my full comments above should indicate, this is not a position I share.
Ms. Erickson goes on to suggest that, "The need for assorted and potentially
outmoded software to interpret these projects restricts rather than enhances
their accessibility."
Again, we agree. Elsewhere in my ACH-ALLC paper I write: "I believe it is
vital that those involved in the development of ETD standards recognize the
importance of adopting non-proprietary formats, such as SGML (HTML), JPEG,
MPEG, and VRML." These remarks are available in the paper's abstract (which
is printed in the conference proceedings) as well as in an earlier and
somewhat abbreviated version of the paper, delivered at the MLA, which is
publicly available on my ETD web site.
At no time did Ms. Erickson contact me or request a full copy of my paper
from the ACH-ALLC meeting.
While it is true that my site documents those theses and dissertations
created with Director, Storyspace, and other proprietary tools, the site's
purpose is precisely that: documentation. I do not claim to endorse the
methodology or content of any of the ETDs listed there.
To the extent that I act as an advocate for hypertext and multimedia theses
and dissertations, I do so because no one else in the community served by
ETEXTCTR-L is (to my knowledge) taking an interest in these forms of
scholarly production.* Surely they have a place at the table here. Don't they?
Finally, Ms. Erickson notes, "I am aware of no responses in ETEXTCTR-L to
Kirschenbaum's posting." This is true, and I have no particular explanation.
Such are the vaguaries of listserv communication. While it is not clear to
me what (if anything) Ms. Erickson means to imply, I would welcome further
discussion of any of the matters I've addressed in this post today.
The full ETEXTCTR-L ETD exchange is archived on my site at:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ETD/ETD.html
All best, Matt
* Hope Greenberg's contributions here are an exception.
===================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu or mattk@virginia.edu Department of English
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ The Blake Archive | IATH