LOC Workshop on Etexts | Page 8

quality arose. For example, the desire to provide users with a searchable text is affected by the question of acceptable level of accuracy. One hundred percent accuracy is tremendously expensive. On the other hand, the output of optical character recognition (OCR) can be tremendously inaccurate. Although AM has attempted to find a middle ground, uncertainty persists as to whether or not it has discovered the right solution.
Questions of quality arose concerning images as well. FLEISCHHAUER contrasted the extremely high level of quality of the digital images in the Cornell Xerox Project with AM's efforts to provide a browse-quality or access-quality image, as opposed to an archival or preservation image. FLEISCHHAUER therefore welcomed the opportunity to compare notes.
FLEISCHHAUER observed in passing that conversations he had had about networks have begun to signal that for various forms of media a determination may be made that there is a browse-quality item, or a distribution-and-access-quality item that may coexist in some systems with a higher quality archival item that would be inconvenient to send through the network because of its size. FLEISCHHAUER referred, of course, to images more than to searchable text.
As AM considered those questions, several conceptual issues arose: ought AM occasionally to reproduce materials entirely through an image set, at other times, entirely through a text set, and in some cases, a mix? There probably would be times when the historical authenticity of an artifact would require that its image be used. An image might be desirable as a recourse for users if one could not provide 100-percent accurate text. Again, AM wondered, as a practical matter, if a distinction could be drawn between rare printed matter that might exist in multiple collections--that is, in ten or fifteen libraries. In such cases, the need for perfect reproduction would be less than for unique items. Implicit in his remarks, FLEISCHHAUER conceded, was the admission that AM has been tilting strongly towards quantity and drawing back a little from perfect quality. That is, it seemed to AM that society would be better served if more things were distributed by LC--even if they were not quite perfect--than if fewer things, perfectly represented, were distributed. This was stated as a proposition to be tested, with responses to be gathered from users.
In thinking about issues related to reproduction of materials and seeing other people engaged in parallel activities, AM deemed it useful to convene a conference. Hence, the Workshop. FLEISCHHAUER thereupon surveyed the several groups represented: 1) the world of images (image users and image makers); 2) the world of text and scholarship and, within this group, those concerned with language--FLEISCHHAUER confessed to finding delightful irony in the fact that some of the most advanced thinkers on computerized texts are those dealing with ancient Greek and Roman materials; 3) the network world; and 4) the general world of library science, which includes people interested in preservation and cataloging.
FLEISCHHAUER concluded his remarks with special thanks to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for its support of the meeting, the American Memory group, the Office for Scholarly Programs, the National Demonstration Lab, and the Office of Special Events. He expressed the hope that David Woodley Packard might be able to attend, noting that Packard's work and the work of the foundation had sponsored a number of projects in the text area.
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SESSION I. CONTENT IN A NEW FORM: WHO WILL USE IT AND WHAT WILL THEY DO?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DALY * Acknowledgements * A new Latin authors disk * Effects of the new technology on previous methods of research * +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Serving as moderator, James DALY acknowledged the generosity of all the presenters for giving of their time, counsel, and patience in planning the Workshop, as well as of members of the American Memory project and other Library of Congress staff, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and its executive director, Colburn S. Wilbur.
DALY then recounted his visit in March to the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH) and the Department of Classics at Rutgers University, where an old friend, Lowell Edmunds, introduced him to the department's IBYCUS scholarly personal computer, and, in particular, the new Latin CD-ROM, containing, among other things, almost all classical Latin literary texts through A.D. 200. Packard Humanities Institute (PHI), Los Altos, California, released this disk late in 1991, with a nominal triennial licensing fee.
Playing with the disk for an hour or so at Rutgers brought home to DALY at once the revolutionizing impact of the new technology on his previous methods of research. Had this disk been available two or three years earlier, DALY contended, when he was engaged in preparing a commentary on Book 10 of Virgil's Aeneid for Cambridge University Press, he would not have required a forty-eight-square-foot table on which to spread the numerous, most frequently consulted items, including some ten