Digital Publication: advantages and disadvantages

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

(to be continued)