LOC Workshop on Etexts | Page 9

or twelve concordances to key Latin authors, an almost equal number of lexica to authors who lacked concordances, and where either lexica or concordances were lacking, numerous editions of authors antedating and postdating Virgil.
Nor, when checking each of the average six to seven words contained in the Virgilian hexameter for its usage elsewhere in Virgil's works or other Latin authors, would DALY have had to maintain the laborious mechanical process of flipping through these concordances, lexica, and editions each time. Nor would he have had to frequent as often the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at the Johns Hopkins University to consult the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Instead of devoting countless hours, or the bulk of his research time, to gathering data concerning Virgil's use of words, DALY--now freed by PHI's Latin authors disk from the tyrannical, yet in some ways paradoxically happy scholarly drudgery-- would have been able to devote that same bulk of time to analyzing and interpreting Virgilian verbal usage.
Citing Theodore Brunner, Gregory Crane, Elli MYLONAS, and Avra MICHELSON, DALY argued that this reversal in his style of work, made possible by the new technology, would perhaps have resulted in better, more productive research. Indeed, even in the course of his browsing the Latin authors disk at Rutgers, its powerful search, retrieval, and highlighting capabilities suggested to him several new avenues of research into Virgil's use of sound effects. This anecdotal account, DALY maintained, may serve to illustrate in part the sudden and radical transformation being wrought in the ways scholars work.
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ MICHELSON * Elements related to scholarship and technology * Electronic texts within the context of broader trends within information technology and scholarly communication * Evaluation of the prospects for the use of electronic texts * Relationship of electronic texts to processes of scholarly communication in humanities research * New exchange formats created by scholars * Projects initiated to increase scholarly access to converted text * Trend toward making electronic resources available through research and education networks * Changes taking place in scholarly communication among humanities scholars * Network-mediated scholarship transforming traditional scholarly practices * Key information technology trends affecting the conduct of scholarly communication over the next decade * The trend toward end-user computing * The trend toward greater connectivity * Effects of these trends * Key transformations taking place * Summary of principal arguments * ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Avra MICHELSON, Archival Research and Evaluation Staff, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), argued that establishing who will use electronic texts and what they will use them for involves a consideration of both information technology and scholarship trends. This consideration includes several elements related to scholarship and technology: 1) the key trends in information technology that are most relevant to scholarship; 2) the key trends in the use of currently available technology by scholars in the nonscientific community; and 3) the relationship between these two very distinct but interrelated trends. The investment in understanding this relationship being made by information providers, technologists, and public policy developers, as well as by scholars themselves, seems to be pervasive and growing, MICHELSON contended. She drew on collaborative work with Jeff Rothenberg on the scholarly use of technology.
MICHELSON sought to place the phenomenon of electronic texts within the context of broader trends within information technology and scholarly communication. She argued that electronic texts are of most use to researchers to the extent that the researchers' working context (i.e., their relevant bibliographic sources, collegial feedback, analytic tools, notes, drafts, etc.), along with their field's primary and secondary sources, also is accessible in electronic form and can be integrated in ways that are unique to the on-line environment.
Evaluation of the prospects for the use of electronic texts includes two elements: 1) an examination of the ways in which researchers currently are using electronic texts along with other electronic resources, and 2) an analysis of key information technology trends that are affecting the long-term conduct of scholarly communication. MICHELSON limited her discussion of the use of electronic texts to the practices of humanists and noted that the scientific community was outside the panel's overview.
MICHELSON examined the nature of the current relationship of electronic texts in particular, and electronic resources in general, to what she maintained were, essentially, five processes of scholarly communication in humanities research. Researchers 1) identify sources, 2) communicate with their colleagues, 3) interpret and analyze data, 4) disseminate their research findings, and 5) prepare curricula to instruct the next generation of scholars and students. This examination would produce a clearer understanding of the synergy among these five processes that fuels the tendency of the use of electronic resources for one process to stimulate its use for other processes of scholarly communication.
For the first process of scholarly communication, the identification of sources, MICHELSON remarked the opportunity scholars now enjoy to supplement traditional word-of-mouth searches for sources