15.568 how academic publications and events are advertised

From: Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty (w.mccarty@btinternet.com)
Date: Mon Apr 08 2002 - 02:13:22 EDT

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                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 568.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

             Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 07:07:22 +0100
             From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
             Subject: P2P or peer squared

    Willard,

    As subscribers to Humanist know, computer-mediated communication appears
    in many guises: ftp archives, publishing on the WWW, discussion lists and
    newsgroups, MOOs and synchronous encounters, software distribution on
    disk. I wonder how academic publications and events are advertised. Has
    there been an evolution from the days of when Archie was used to search
    for repositories of files accessible by ftp? Has the sense of targeting
    audiences shifted --- one thinks of the almost ubiquitous apology for
    cross-posting and the frequent extension of calls for papers, proposals
    and presentations?

    My question is prompted by this little bit from an introduction from a
    recent publication ( a programmers reference work ) :

    <cite>

    P2P

    You can enroll in our peer-to-peer discussion forums at [...] where we
    provide you with a forum where you can put your questions to the author,
    reviewers and fellow industry professionals. [...] You can choose to join
    the mailing lists or you can receive them as a weekly digest. If you dont
    have the time or facility to receive the mailing list, then you can search
    our online archives. Youll find the ability to search on specific subject
    areas or keywords. As these lists are moderated, you can be confident of
    finding good, accurate information quickly. Mails can be edited or moved
    by the moderator into the correct place, making this a most efficient
    resource. Junk and spam mail are deleted, and your own-email address is
    protected by the unique [...] system from web-bots that can automatically
    collect newsgroup mailing list addresses.

    </cite>

    I am struck by the interesting conjunction of the invitation to ask
    questions with the promise of well-organised information : both poised on
    the judicious intervention of a human moderator aided by ingenious
    software.

    I post this to re-iterate the now familiar theme of an academy without
    walls, an academy that understands that the records of a gathering can
    reach those not gathered in that instant. And in so reiterating the
    commonplace of the documentary trail, I issue a plea that, as the new
    century advances, more and more academically-trained professionals whether
    academics by vocation or avocation consider access to the records of
    events as well as access to events themselves. There is a risk in doing
    so. And perhaps a greater risk in avoiding the consideration.

    --
    Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
            http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/ivt.htm
    per Interactivity ad Virtuality via Textuality
    



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