The Scholar’s Space

In what definitely seems at least a partial  rejection of the conventional wisdom,  articles from the German version of  Wikipedia  will appear as a printed volume.  WPauf Deutsch is said to be the second largest portion of the total WP effort, after the English language section.  About  25,000 items will appear in the printed version,  out of more than 750, 000, covering the topics WPaD  searchers have been looking up in the online resource.  Some people have noted that the publisher, Bertelsmann, had been making unflattering comments about the low quality of WP articles over the last years. But, presumable there is nothing like the prospect of profit to soothe old frictions.  Germany has a very large book industry, and the publication of informative works of reference on all sorts of topics has always been healthy. In fact, I have such a thing on my book shelf, not even one foot away from me. It’s an old Knauer’s Lexikon, held together by slabs of green tape over the spine. A team of editors has been reworking the WPaD material into abbreviated form with each entry to be about a paragraph or so in length. About 1000 photos are to be included as well.   I think the WPaD in print will resembe the almanacs that are familar to us over here: a place to get information  on a specific topic, quickly, without firing up the laptop or PC and logging in. We were at a conference recently, and one of the presenters noted that Cambridge University Press has a policy of posting materials online, and this has lead to increased sales of the printed version in almost every case.  As long as real reading on screens, as opposed to consulting or dipping, is so trying physically, decent printing on good paper will be with us. The WP One Volume Encyclopedia will go on sale in September for 19.95 Euros, and the WP Foundation will get 1 Euro on each sale. If the 2008 version succeeds commercially, there could be others. We shall see.

Concurring Opinions is a blog by and for law school professors and those interested in the same kind of thing law professors think and talk about.  There were several recent posts there about matters raised in a new book by Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it.  I usually take a glance at this blog a couple of times in the course of a week, since some of the topics are interesting, even if approached from a somewhat different slant.  We are all interested in what’s to become of the thing we call the Internet, and in who will get the chance to decide what happens.

Opinions

In today’s New York Times,  there is an article on the problem of long term data preservation, and on some of the cost factors involved in any scheme to do this.  Librarians are very familiar with the problems of preservation, and for a while there, a number of articles appeared in our press and in  other venues, discussing what was involved.  Then, the topic seemed to disappear, at least in regard to preserving the scholarly record as we have come to understand it. But the same animal has returned, wearing a somewhat different hide and coloration.  Interest is being focused on the enormous quantities of data produced as a result of  research in the physical and social sciences.  And, some investigators want to “repurpose” data generated in  earlier experiments, their own or someone else’s  with different endpoints or outcome measures,  different analytical techniques and so forth.  But as the enthusiasm for such efforts grows, the facts about data preservation emerge, or rather, re-emerge with discouraging force; long- term data preservation, in an  accessible and useful format,  is a real technological challenge. Moreover, whatever measures might be suggested as solutions, it’s all going to cost a great deal of money.  Preservation also means more than mere dumping of files someplace, even with something like intelligent and conscientious curation.  A good deal of what we would call subject analysis and description ( OK, metadata in today’s lingo), will be necessary.  Institutional repositories, “Long Tail” marketing, Publishing on Demand (POD), digital publication in general and a lot of other goodies existing now or promised all depend on a reliable and secure “data base”, and I’m wondering if we have it or can get it at a price our institutions can, or will, pay. It’s probably time for a serious assessment of what is possible and what the price tag will be.