Digital Publication: advantages and disadvantages
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What makes a digital publication useful?
(answer in note form)
Accessibility
- cf. Perseus user figures as compared to books in a physical library
- Scholars/students outside of major universities, especially in developing world where libraries can not afford obscure/expensive titles
- costs per unit are lower (or free); development costs usually not higher
- web accessible to new audiences who might never read a classics book otherwise
(Almost) unlimited size/space
- not limited by page size and volume thickness
- can expand abbreviations/conventions/glossary (improve accessibility to non-specialists)
- can include multiple versions of text/image/media
- ToCs
- indices
- images
- appendices
Media
- images; colour photos; scalable/zoomable images
- multimedia: audio files, video, flash, VR, etc.
- interactive media: "game-like" walkthroughs of archaeological sites
Hyperlinking
- internal linking: text to footnotes (and back); cross references to notes, glossary, appendices, bibliography
- clickable 'thumbnail' images with full images in pop-up
- cross-references to external projects
- importing of data from external projects (dynamic, repurposing)
- mirroring external projects
Updating/Work in progress
- "Oh great, that means you can update every day, right?"
- Stability issues; citable publication
Transparency / Iterative research
- source code (cf. Open Source model of scholarship)
- check sources
- indices as output and research tool
Collaboration / Community building
- digital publication can be done by people scattered all around the world
- an "open source" digital publication (somewhat similar to Wikipedia) can attract collaborators willing to invest time and energy in making the publication better
(Notes above partly reflect Bodard 2008.)