electronic journals and mail, cont. (67)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Mon, 17 Apr 89 18:53:04 EDT


Humanist Mailing List, Vol. 2, No. 853. Monday, 17 Apr 1989.


(1) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 89 08:47:52 CDT (22 lines)
From: Steve Dill <UGA108@SDNET>
Subject: Electronic Journals

(2) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 89 08:45:09 CDT (26 lines)
From: Natalie Maynor <MAYNOR@MSSTATE>
Subject: The Language of E-Mail

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 89 08:47:52 CDT
From: Steve Dill <UGA108@SDNET>
Subject: Electronic Journals

To All: At a recent meeting of ASECS, I heard that the cost of
printed journals will be so great that many libraries will refuse
to subscribe except to the most "prominent." While science journals
are much more expensive than others, journals are journals to most
librarians. Consider the following chain of events.
1. I tried to organize a demonstration of Bitnet. It received
sufficient but not overwhelming publicity. Six participants out of
a possible 900 appeared.
2. At a seminar on journal editing, an editor of a printed journal
suggested that e-journals might be part of the answer to the costs of
academic publishing.
So, if it were a matter of tenure or something, would I qualify for
developing "computer applications?" And how do we get humanists to take
electronic solutions seriously?
For a start, could we develop a set of standards for electronic
journals; take the bull by the horns, as it were; and see how our
positive response to an old and tired system is greeted by those deans?
Regards,
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 89 08:45:09 CDT
From: Natalie Maynor <MAYNOR@MSSTATE>
Subject: The Language of E-Mail

I was especially interested in Gunhild Viden's observations about
the language of e-mail since I have just started a short research
project on this subject -- a good excuse to combine my addiction to
e-mail with my need to be productive! So far all I've done is
download an hour of so of "conversation" from relay. My plan is to
look first at language simplification. The spelling simplification
is, of course, obvious, but I think that morphological and
syntactical simplification might be of more interest. I hope to
reach some conclusions about what this kind of simplification says
about the essential and non-essential for communication and perhaps
about the direction of language-change as electronic communication
begins to replace hard copy in some areas. As I said, I have just
started this project -- haven't even checked with the office for
"permission to do research on human subjects" yet. My short
research project on language simplification may grow into something
much larger or may change directions totally. So obviously I am
also interested in whether anybody knows of work already published
on this subject. I have been assuming that there is none. I would
also be interested in any other comments or advice.
Natalie Maynor, English Dept., Mississippi State Univ., USA