the web

[David J Birnbaum]

> In the spirit of electronic information dissemination, what would
> be the problem with posting updated conference programs, such as Chicago's
> AATSEEL, to this list?

It is expensive (we pay for our email, even if we don't see line-item
bills, and this file is over 82k and over 2300 lines). And it is wrong
to mail something to hundreds of subscribers for the convenience of a
few.

The web is standard current technology, and it is the only practical way
to distribute large amounts of unstable information to a wide readership.
By "unstable" I mean that I have updated the program over a dozen times
this year, and I am not willing to ask the entire SEELANGS readership to
pay for frequent email distribution. Current information is always
available, but you have to go to the information, instead of waiting for
it to show up in your mailbox. This is the only viable model; mass
emailing of this type of file is as inefficient and expensive as mass
postal mailings, except that you don't see the expense directly.

If you learned to use email, you can learn to use the web. And as George
Fowler pointed out last night, you are going to need to learn to use the
web, because more and more information will be available only on the web.
My electronic distribution of supplementary AATSEEL program information,
which has never been available in any form before, is not an arcane,
nerds-only attempt to disenfranchise those who are not information science
specialists. And I am not asking you to learn to use technology that is of
no value beyond reading the AATSEEL program. The web is mainstream, it is
here, and it is growing. It is the most significant development in
information distribution since email.

I have no intention of curtailing the amount of print information that is
distributed in the AATSEEL newsletter about the program. But the only area
where I am going to expand information is the web, because that is the
venue best suited to disseminating this type of information. I will
continue to make a plain-text version of the program available at my ftp
site, as well.

Contrary to last night's posting, web access and training is available at
the University of Toronto without hiring a consultant. I wrote last night
to a colleague in their Centre for Computing in the Humanities, and he
offered to provide a free web introduction to our colleagues there.
Finding the computer center at your university may not be easy, and you
may have to hunt around to find someone who can get you started, but that
person probably exists, even if it's just a student running Netscape on a
machine in a university computer lab. And if you do not have Internet
access through your university, you may have to get your web access
through an independent service provider, much as many SEELANGS readers get
their email through CompuServe. This is comparable to subscribing to cable
TV (only less expensive, in most cases). You do not need a degree in
computer science and you do not need to work at a supercomputing center to
get on the web; the web is available to the general public in most
countries.

I understand that there will be a few people who genuinely cannot obtain
web access (I was in this position in Sofia last summer, where the only
Internet-connected machines at my disposal were too slow to use), much as
there are a few people who genuinely cannot obtain email access. This
situation is remedied by asking friends to download and email the
necessary information to you. It is not remedied through large or frequent
mass mailings to the entire SEELANGS subscriber base.

With best electronic wishes,

David
==================================================
Professor David J. Birnbaum      djbpitt+ at pitt.edu
The Royal York Apartments, #802  http://www.pitt.edu/~djbpitt/
3955 Bigelow Boulevard           voice: 1-412-624-5712
Pittsburgh, PA  15213  USA       fax:   1-412-624-9714