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The proposal is not to duplicate printed journals with an online simulacrum, but rather to developextensions of the print journals of record with supplementary materials. Many journals have stepped into the digital realm byreplicating the print version online. Given the value placed on image quality in art history and the interactive tools availablefor image display, it is incumbent on the journals to go beyond replication of the printed page and to take advantage of thespecial opportunities presented by the electronic environment. It is possible for electronic publication to accomplish thingsunavailable or unaffordable in print: color illustrations, zooming and panning, search engines, hyperlinks, and tagging, as well asother tools to be developed in the years ahead.
Scholarship comes in various forms, not all amenable to a 20-page article or full- treatment book, therestrictive options prevailing in print. The goal of electronic journal extensions is to open up a more diversified field ofscholarly genres and formats: texts of varying length and layered with networked links and new possibilities for active scholarlydialogue. Over time the journals will discover many ways to take advantage of the electronic space, but at the outset four types ofmaterial seem appropriate for an online venue.
The Cultural VR Lab at UCLA produces 3-D computer models of historic environments. Its website (cvrlab.org)allows only a glimpse of their reconstructions of the Colosseum and Roman Forum, and the related publications have mostly appeared involumes focused on technology and digital imaging. This research should reach the relevant scholarly community as well as digitalmodelers and technicians. Scholars are now working with fly-throughs, videos, and real-time tools, overlays andenlargements that are optimally viewed electronically rather than fragmented and frozen in a single frame. The proliferation ofwebsites and media labs suggests there is a pent-up demand to publish digitally based research that now has no discipline-wideoutlet. Not publishing this new research inhibits the growth of the field and discourages further digital research.
The journals have implied word limits on what they publish. Articles average 11,000 words. To maintainwide-ranging coverage and distribute the benefits of publication, the journals limit repeat publication by any one author. Althoughthe editors have wide discretion, traditional policies and parameters discourage manuscripts longer than 15,000 words, largeillustration programs, and supplementary material, such as documents or quantitative data. The need for more flexibility isindicated by the following recent submissions at JSAH: 1) an argument based on building dimensions requiring extensive numericalproofs, akin to data sets in a mathematical journal; 2) manuscripts in two parts, each the length of a standard article; 3) an argumentdependent on a copious illustration program including a series of stills that should be presented as an animation. The electronicextension could accommodate unusually long texts and supplementary material, including source material and annotatedcatalogues.
The monograph remains the foundation of scholarship. It contributes new knowledge, regenerates fields, andserves as the training ground of scholars who become experienced in the rigors of research, forceful analysis and clear writing throughthe preparation of monographs, many of which begin as dissertations. The necessity and benefits of monographic studiescontinue, even if they are not always viable business propositions for book publishers. Journals should step in and meet this growingneed by publishing book-length monographs.
Although the word e-book has passed in common usage, it implies a format that fails to maximize digitalopportunities. The British Library's Turning the Pages™program vividly demonstrates the gap between book and web publication.
The College Art Association published a book series known as CAA Monographs, and its demise is relevant toconsider here. CAA published 56 titles, roughly one title per yearbetween the start of the series in the 1940s and its termination in 1998. CAA ended the series because of cost and commercial factors:it could not find a press to distribute the books, sales were limited, publishing costs were high, and subsidies were inadequateto cover costs. CAA Monographs aimed to do the same thing as university presses, namely publish books, but it could not compete:the university press conferred more prestige and offered higher production values. The proposal here is not to reproduce CAAMonographs and compete with the university presses but to do something distinct by moving into an arena the presses are vacatingand by enriching texts with valuable digital enhancements.
Electronic publication opens up new dialogic possibilities that do not now exist in art history. The moderatedonline forums on the American Historical Review website allow historians to exchange comments on selected topics. Thisstimulating model drives home Patrick Bazin's point that electronic publication involves "a reconfiguration centered no longer around afounding object [i. e., the book], but around the very process ofreading."
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