ETEXTCTR-L's Discussion of ETDs
August 1997
From guedon@ERE.UMontreal.CA Fri Aug 1 23:40:15 1997
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Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 23:38:48 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Guedon Jean-Claude
Subject: Re: Future of Etextctr-l
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
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Thank you for waking us up a bit.
I am involved in e-journal publishing and most interested in what might
be termed the political economy of knowledge and the ways in which new
media such as Internet may affect it. For example, can we hope to see the
scholarly communities control anew their means of communication without
perturbing the sociology of knowledge production and so as to avoid the
doings of companies such as Elsevier that makes more than 30% return on
their investments (see Le Monde, July 20th, 1995 and Forbes, December
18th, 1995) and threaten the information lifeline of all but the richest
among us (institutionally speaking). And I am not speaking about
developing or emergent nations where the situation is unbearably void.
Does that interest anyone?
How about using the possibilities of XML to stabilize the publishing
platform over the Internet?
How about reconciling ISO 12083 with XML?
How about producing SGML conversion too;s and browsers that would be open
and free (à la Linux, for example)?
How about putting our university theses on-line for free and offering
them to the world instead of having UMI sell them to those who can afford
them. The money our universities pay to place the theses within Diss.
Abstracts would probably go a long way toward publishing these theses
electronically if some free, standardized tools and methods were agreed
upon (I am trying to do this with the French-speaking countries).
Incidentally, rumor has it that Elsevier is trying to buy UMI but that
they are quite a few million dollars short of what is asked for. Does
that ring any alarm bell in anybody's head?
How can we mobilize people to digitize the cultural heritage of every
human community. Let us remember that ANYTHING THAT WILL NOT BE DIGITIZED
WILL BE MARGINALIZED OR EVEN LOST.
Yes, I would like to see this list come to life again.
Best to all,
Jean-Claude Guédon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Claude Guedon Tel. 514-343-6208
Professeur titulaire Fax: 514-343-2211
Departement de litterature comparee Surfaces
Universite de Montreal Tel. 514-343-5683
C.P. 6128, Succursale "A" Fax. 514-343-5684
Montreal, Qc H3C 3J7 ftp ftp.umontreal.ca
Canada guedon@ere.umontreal.ca
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>From nancyk@neuheim.ucdavis.edu Sat Aug 2 17:36:28 1997
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From: Nancy Kushigian
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Cc: cnhoward@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: Future of Etextctr-l
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As a collection development librarian who has had to help administer a 21%
serials cut in the last year, I cannot agree too strongly with Jean-Paul
Guedon's suggestion that we develop the tools and sociological climate to
work directly with scholarly producers of information and research to make
that information, if not freely, at least reasonably available to all who
need access.
As a neophyte producer of TEI E-Texts, I would also like to see production
and publication of E-texts simplified for those individuals or scholarly
organizations that decide to embark on such projects. Perhaps XML will
offer opportunities to move in that direction.
-------------------------------------------------
Nancy Kushigian, Ph.D.
Humanities/Social Sciences Department
Shields Library
University of California at Davis
Davis, California 95616-5291
njkushigian@ucdavis.edu
916-754-4337
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Date: Mon, 04 Aug 97 08:35:32 EDT
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From: louise leonard
Subject: Re: Future of Etextctr-l
To: ETEXTCTR-L@CORNELL.EDU
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 1 Aug 1997 23:38:48 -0400 (EDT) from
It may interest you to know that the University of Florida has decided
to require its graduate students to put their theses on the internet.
This is one of the suggestions M. Guedon made.
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 08:53:31 -0500 (EST)
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From: "C. Perry Willett"
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To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
In-Reply-To: <199708041238.IAA14244@cornell.edu>
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This note woke my long-standing confusion about the issue of
e-dissertations. What does it mean to put a dissertation on the
Internet, or on the Web? Grad programs have developed a set of
guidelines for theses (1 inch margins, double spaced, bonded paper, etc),
and although everyone grumbles, it's meant to facilitate the long-term
archiving of the thesis. What kind of guidelines will grad students get
for e-dissertations? What format will they be in? Will we require all
students to learn SGML (the most sensible, but least likely solution),
HTML (at least it's an open standard), or will we be accepting theses in
whatever word processing format they choose? Do we let the students
decide which format is most appropriate? What about any non-textual,
graphical images? What formats and standards should we require for
these? What are the long-term implications for archival storage? I think
that DAI is digitizing all 1997- theses into PDF format--will this be a
viable format in 25 years? 50 years? Students and administrators
probably don't worry about this (or are even aware that it is an issue)
but librarians should be, and I don't think there is anything like
a consensus (or even a discussion) on this out there.
Perry Willett
Main Library
Indiana University
PWILLETT@indiana.edu
On Mon, 4 Aug 1997, louise leonard wrote:
> It may interest you to know that the University of Florida has decided
> to require its graduate students to put their theses on the internet.
> This is one of the suggestions M. Guedon made.
>From rba@bellcore.com Mon Aug 4 10:31:44 1997
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From: rba@bellcore.com (Bob Allen)
Message-Id: <199708041431.KAA10797@media.bellcore.com>
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Standards for online theses can be found at the
Web site of the Network for a Digital Library
of Theses and Dissertation:
http://www.ndltd.org/
>From Julia_Flanders@brown.edu Mon Aug 4 11:25:28 1997
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From: Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 11:19:53 -0400
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Those interested in electronic dissertations and the issues accompanying
their production/dissemination might want to look at the web site on that
subject set up by Matthew Kirschenbaum at Virginia:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ETD/ETD.html
There's also a site at Virginia Tech:
http://etd.vt.edu/etd/
He gave a good paper on this subject at ACH/ALLC this spring and has put
together some resources which address (though probably don't solve
conclusively :-) issues of standard format and long-term archiving and
function.
Best, Julia
Julia Flanders, Textbase Editor
Brown University Women Writers Project
Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
(401) 863-3835
>From m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu Mon Aug 4 11:34:23 1997
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From: m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu (Mark McFarland)
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Bob Allen wrote:
>Standards for online theses can be found at the
>Web site of the Network for a Digital Library
>of Theses and Dissertation:
>
>http://www.ndltd.org/
Thanks for the URL Bob - this summer I have trying to identify what is
happening in the world of e-dissertations and theses (ETD) because I was
drafted onto a
campus committee charged with implementing an ETD solution. I have been
able to identify 2 organized efforts (so far) - the NDLTD and the UMI solution.
My question is (and I'm assuming you're involved in the NDLTD) - where
do the two initiatives intersect? (or do they). You all are developing
(if I understand this correctly from your website) a DTD for e-theses - but,
do you support or do business with UMI at all-specifically are records
for ETDs created by schools in the NDLTD program appearing in UMI's
Dissertations Abstracts product?
Also, does the author sign an agreement with the school regarding
rights and responsibilites (for protecting the intellectual property)?
Mark McFarland
University of Texas at Austin
General Libraries
>From rba@bellcore.com Mon Aug 4 12:37:07 1997
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 12:37:03 -0400
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From: rba@bellcore.com (Bob Allen)
Message-Id: <199708041637.MAA10980@media.bellcore.com>
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Cc: etd@vt.edu, fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu
I am not directly involved with NDLTD and should not speak for
its policies. However, I believe there has been friendly
discussions between UMI and NDLTD.
Ed Fox of Virginia Tech (which was mentioned in an earlier
message) is a good contact and I see the Web page refers
questions to etd@vt.edu
Bob Allen
--------------
> My question is (and I'm assuming you're involved in the NDLTD) - where
> do the two initiatives intersect? (or do they). You all are developing
> (if I understand this correctly from your website) a DTD for e-theses - but,
> do you support or do business with UMI at all-specifically are records
> for ETDs created by schools in the NDLTD program appearing in UMI's
> Dissertations Abstracts product?
>
> Also, does the author sign an agreement with the school regarding
> rights and responsibilites (for protecting the intellectual property)?
>
>From gailmac@vt.edu Mon Aug 4 13:22:38 1997
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To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
From: Gail McMillan
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
UMI and the NDLTD are working together; discussion of ETDs began about ten
years ago between UMI, Virginia Tech, and several others. Since the
University Libraries at VT was brought into the discussion by the Graduate
School about four years ago, we have included the needs of UMI in all of
our procedures and programming as we developed archiving, accessing, and
processing for ETDs on our campus.
UM'Is roll has changed very little. Instead of sending a paper copy of each
dissertation to UMI, we automatically generate a note that is emailed to
UMI every time a new ETD becomes available. This note includes the author,
title, and the URL. It is my understanding that UMI then downloads the
ETD, makes a printout, and microfilms each ETD. This microfilm is added to
their vault along with its vast collection of microfilms of traditional
dissertations. The standard information is also added to Dissertation
Abstracts and recently UMI began incorporating the downloaded ETDs into
their online products.
The Scholarly Communications Project at Virginia Tech's University
Libraries provides information about ETDs at
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/
Re Mark McFarland's other questions:
DTD for ETDs: A Document Type Definition has also been under
development at Virginia Tech for at least a year because we have been
thinking that perhaps ETDs should actually be available in a variety of
formats to serve a variety of purposes. We dont' necessarily want students
to have to submit multiple formats, so we could possibly generate them from
one SGML format. This could result in: HTML for Web display (of some or
all information in the ETD), PDF for control of appearance and printing,
and the SGML for, among other things, generating the MARC (and other)
bibliographic records. More information is available at
http://etd.vt.edu/etd-ml/index.htm
Copyright: Our copyright policies are no different for ETDs than
they are for the traditional paper theses and dissertations, however, with
the ETDs we began to formally ask the students to agree to the following
statement:
"I hereby grant to Virginia Tech or its agents the right to archive and to
make
available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University
Libraries
in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary
rights,
such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as
articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation."
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Gail McMillan University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Director, Scholarly Communications Project
Head, Special Collections Department
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu (540) 231-9252
>From m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu Mon Aug 4 14:21:28 1997
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 13:21:17 -0500 (CDT)
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From: m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu (Mark McFarland)
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Gail McMillan wrote:
>UMI and the NDLTD are working together; discussion of ETDs began about ten
>years ago between UMI, Virginia Tech, and several others. Since the
>University Libraries at VT was brought into the discussion by the Graduate
>School about four years ago, we have included the needs of UMI in all of
>our procedures and programming as we developed archiving, accessing, and
>processing for ETDs on our campus.
Thanks Gail. Something I expected to find when I visited your site
was information that looked/sounded like the NCSTRL (networked computer
science tech reports library) software. I have followed the NCSTRL
project for some time now and have thought (I'm sure I'm not the only one)
that the software developed for tech reports could also be useful in
development
of other "collections" of digital files. Is there any use of (or plan
to use) NCSTRL code to manage any of the ETDs in the NDLTD?
Finally, It sounded as if you weren't shipping the PDF file of the e-thesis to
UMI for inclusion in the digital dissertations archive - correct?
Thanks for the information Gail.
As I said in a previous message...we here
at UT Austin have been trying to devise a plan for implementing ETDs
and do not wish to re-invent any wheels (or software or methods). But,
I am observing that providing an electronic copy of a simple all-ascii
document is quite simple. Complex ETDs and e-texts are difficult
for many reasons - not the least of which is the fact that the content itself
requires structures around it that are necessary in order for the end-user
to have access to the file. The "structures" I'm talking about are things
as simple as devising a method for acquiring a pdf viewer or multimedia
plugin, to such things as search engines (as part of the docuement) to
enable users
to get the most out of the document. Also, it seems to me that as authors
are in the position of having to address user interface issues as we continue
to invent new forms/packages for digital information.
Mark McFarland
UT Austin
Electronic Information Programs Office
>From pwillett@indiana.edu Mon Aug 4 18:07:15 1997
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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 17:02:16 -0500 (EST)
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From: "C. Perry Willett"
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I'm glad to hear that a DTD is being developed, because it seems
to me that until everyone is using the same DTD, it would be very
hard if not impossible to count on any particular dissertation to
be preserved and usable in the long term. Virginia Tech has gone
a long way in the right direction, but this last step is critical.
I'm reassured somewhat by looking at their web page--my initial alarm
was based upon Matt Kirshenbaum's page at UVa, where he lists a
number of e-theses underway, to be published on various media in
various formats, none of which sounded very permanent to me. But
with the development of a DTD, then everyone could format their
theses the same way, with uniform documentation. Good news.
Perry Willett
Main Library
Indiana University
PWILLETT@indiana.edu
>From Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu Tue Aug 5 10:29:15 1997
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Subject: Re: E-dissertations
This, somewhat predictably, from a TEI user: is the DTD development at
Virginia Tech starting from scratch? any thought of using TEI or TEI Lite?
or other existing DTDs?
Best, Julia
Julia Flanders, Textbase Editor
Brown University Women Writers Project
Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
(401) 863-3835
>From gailmac@vt.edu Tue Aug 5 11:06:23 1997
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From: Gail McMillan
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Searching and Finding ETDs:
Virginia Tech continues to be a partner in NCSTRL and so we are
using the Dienst software as one of our search engines. Currently Dienst
only searches the database of VT ETDs, but we plan to use this to search
for ETDs among the distributed systems of the NDLTD. There is a search
link from http://www.theses.org/ Now I will put a link on the library's
ETD page also! ( http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/ )
Re UMI: We no longer have to send UMI each dissertation because
they have access to them just like everyone else on the Internet/Web. The
purpose of the email message that is programmatically generated when a new
ETD is added, is to let UMI know that there is a new ETD available for them
to download so that the library no longer has to mail a copy to UMI. This
is one of the time and labor savings that libraries can realize from ETDs,
but UMI is still including them in Dissertation Abstracts (and their other
products).
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Gail McMillan University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Director, Scholarly Communications Project
Head, Special Collections Department
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu (540) 231-9252
>From gailmac@vt.edu Tue Aug 5 14:02:43 1997
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From: Gail McMillan
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
>This, somewhat predictably, from a TEI user: is the DTD development at
>Virginia Tech starting from scratch? any thought of using TEI or TEI Lite?
>or other existing DTDs?
I don't think we have not found a DTD that is a good match for the ETD, so
we are developing one. We are aware of the TEI and plan on the ETD DTD
being compatible. I hope that you will consult
http://etd.vt.edu/etd/etd-ml/index.htm and address any specific questions
to out DTD developer, Neill Kipp (nkipp@vt.edu).
>Julia Flanders, Textbase Editor
>Brown University Women Writers Project
>Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
>(401) 863-3835
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Gail McMillan University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Director, Scholarly Communications Project
Head, Special Collections Department
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu (540) 231-9252
>From guedon@ERE.UMontreal.CA Tue Aug 5 18:21:18 1997
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From: Guedon Jean-Claude
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
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On Tue, 5 Aug 1997 Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu wrote:
> This, somewhat predictably, from a TEI user: is the DTD development at
> Virginia Tech starting from scratch? any thought of using TEI or TEI Lite?
> or other existing DTDs?
>
Indeed! I did suggest using ISO 12083...
Any thought on this?
Best,
Jean-Claude Guédon
>From John.Lamp@probitas.cs.utas.edu.au Tue Aug 5 19:27:07 1997
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From: John Lamp
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
>On Tue, 5 Aug 1997 Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu wrote:
>
>> This, somewhat predictably, from a TEI user: is the DTD development at
>> Virginia Tech starting from scratch? any thought of using TEI or TEI Lite?
>> or other existing DTDs?
>>
>Indeed! I did suggest using ISO 12083...
>Any thought on this?
Yes, sticking blindly to existing DTDs is a dead end.
TEI is a fantastic DTD for its intended purpose. It's massive overkill for
marking up a thesis for general research purposes.
The book DTD in ISO12083 is an example of an all encompassing DTD designed
by a committee for general purposes, but without encapsulating the essence
of thesis structure.
There's also the question of the XML DTD.
By all means have a look at compatibility issues, but I would also look at
compatibility with ICADD's DTD for visually impaired. Or a system for
generating ICADD compliant instances.
To me, the fundamental purpose of SGML is to capture the structure of a
document for whatever purpose is intended for the document. Markup is not
an end in itself, nor is there a "best" DTD in abstract terms.
The DTD is analogous to a data dictionary in a DBMS. No one in their right
mind (or left mind if feeling creative) would have the temerity to suggest
that there is a "best" data dictionary which is just as good for storing
general ledger information, as it would be for storing taxanomic details of
the sub-species of Anaspides (FWIW, a Tasmanian fresh water shrimp).
There has been a major project here which has developed a system for
preparing legislation for parliament, managing workflow, generating camera
ready copy, automatically generating amendment acts and dynamic
consolidation of legislation to a particular point in time. All of this is
based on SGML. None of the existing DTDs, even ones intended for
legislation, would come near this. The DTDs developed for the project were
certainly influenced by previous examples, but are essentially much more
developed than any previous DTDs.
I shan't even mention the HTML DTDs. HTML is not the little brother of
SGML, it's more the Forrest Gump cousin.
Cheers
John
--
_--_|\ John Lamp, originating in Hobart, Tasmania
/ \ Phone: 03 6226 2375 - Fax: 03 6226 2913
\_.--._/ email: John.Lamp@infosys.utas.edu.au
v <--<< http://www.infosys.utas.edu.au/cgi/people/staff/jw_lamp
Department of Information Systems, University of Tasmania
GPO Box 252-87, Hobart 7001, Australia
** NOTE change of address **
>From pwillett@indiana.edu Wed Aug 6 08:56:05 1997
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 07:55:58 -0500 (EST)
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Perhaps the TEI DTD is not appropriate for all fields and purposes. Of
course, there's nothing stopping anyone using it from just indicating
paragraph breaks--the level of encoding is up to the individual. But one
of the triumphs of the TEI DTD is its header, which allows for the
detailed recording of bibliographic information and metadata, crucial
for the longevity of any electronic file. There's no reason not to learn
from and build upon other's work in this area.
Perry Willett
Main Library
Indiana University
PWILLETT@indiana.edu
On Wed, 6 Aug 1997, John Lamp wrote:
> Yes, sticking blindly to existing DTDs is a dead end.
>
> TEI is a fantastic DTD for its intended purpose. It's massive overkill
> for marking up a thesis for general research purposes.
>From m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu Wed Aug 6 09:43:22 1997
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From: m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu (Mark McFarland)
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
John Lamp wrote:
>To me, the fundamental purpose of SGML is to capture the structure of a
>document for whatever purpose is intended for the document. Markup is not
>an end in itself, nor is there a "best" DTD in abstract terms.
>
>The DTD is analogous to a data dictionary in a DBMS. No one in their right
>mind (or left mind if feeling creative) would have the temerity to suggest
>that there is a "best" data dictionary which is just as good for storing
>general ledger information, as it would be for storing taxanomic details of
>the sub-species of Anaspides (FWIW, a Tasmanian fresh water shrimp).
I agree on the purpose of SGML - and I think that trying to
develop a singel DTD for theses and dissertations is analogous to
trying to write a DTD for Government Information...to me the main common
attribute
of theses and diss have is that they are written (in non-fiction prose)
exclusively by grad students. So can a single DTD work for physics as works
for geography as works for chemistry etc...what I like about the TEI approach
is that it recognizes that there are inherent differences in document structure
based on discipline - If I correctly interpret the statement made in the
TEI guidelines
their purpose is to "provide a standard format for data interchange in
humanities research...".
Mark McFarland
UT Austin, Libraries
Electronic Information Programs Office
>From guedon@ERE.UMontreal.CA Wed Aug 6 10:01:53 1997
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 09:59:47 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Guedon Jean-Claude
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
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On Wed, 6 Aug 1997, Mark McFarland wrote:
> Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 08:43:17 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Mark McFarland
> To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
> Subject: Re: E-dissertations
>
>
> I agree on the purpose of SGML - and I think that trying to
> develop a singel DTD for theses and dissertations is analogous to
> trying to write a DTD for Government Information...to me the main common
> attribute
> of theses and diss have is that they are written (in non-fiction prose)
> exclusively by grad students. So can a single DTD work for physics as works
> for geography as works for chemistry etc...what I like about the TEI approach
> is that it recognizes that there are inherent differences in document structure
> based on discipline - If I correctly interpret the statement made in the
> TEI guidelines
> their purpose is to "provide a standard format for data interchange in
> humanities research...".
Following up on this DTD problem, I personally favor two approaches:
1. No need to develop a particular DTD for theses because developing such
a DTD is a major undertaking and because there is nothing in theses that
makes them particularly singular as a class of documents. In other words,
theses are as varied as books. In fact theses are potential books (so
far. I am discounting the multi-media extensions that begin to appear now).
2. TEI is an excellent DTD but it is oriented toward the humanities and
it is based on a genre classification that does not help in the hard
sciences.
I suggested ISO 12083 because it is a DTD designed for books. We use it
for my journal Surfaces as well. It is being reconciled with XML and it
can easily be adapted to many situation by including some supplementary
statements tied to this or that sub-class of documents.
There may be better DTD's that ISO 12083 already lying there, but I
firmly believe that we should build on what already exists. And if
soemthing potentially better exists, please, let us know so as to help us
focus our discussion better.
Best to all,
Jean-Claude Guedon
>From Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu Wed Aug 6 10:12:44 1997
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 10:14:15 -0400
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Subject: Re: E-dissertations
>Yes, sticking blindly to existing DTDs is a dead end.
>
>TEI is a fantastic DTD for its intended purpose. It's massive overkill for
>marking up a thesis for general research purposes.
Certainly sticking blindly to existing DTDs would be a dead end (or at
least silly). Using existing DTDs where they serve your needs instead of
reinventing the (large, complicated) wheel might be good policy. Although
installing and managing a large DTD like the TEI might seem like an
unnecessarily large task for an individual, it's the sort of thing an
e-text center might want to undertake on behalf of its clientele. And it's
important to remember that while one is under no obligation to use all of
the features provided by a large, inclusive DTD, using one that's used by
other people (even if you only use it in a limited way) provides
compatibility with other research.
Leaving aside the issue of compatibility, I don't say for sure that the TEI
DTD is the best tool for the job here. However, I looked at the ETD DTD and
my impression was that at its strongest it reproduced the features of the
TEI (basic structural elements, bibliographical information, some useful
phrase-level elements) but that in places it takes a presentational rather
than descriptive approach to text markup; for instance, in the definition
of the Q and BR elements:
>The element type inline quoted text (q) is a construct that denotes that
>the contained text should
>be flowed inline and be prefaced by a left-quote (66) and followed by a
>right-quote (99).
>The element type natural break (br) indicates that the text flow should
>break at this point, and
>begin flowing again after the break. Because the element is empty, the end
>tag () must be
>omitted. Breaking is most useful in long titles and for special emphasis
>within paragraphs.
This sort of definition (and the emphasis throughout the documentation on
the phrase "will be formatted as") really compromises the usefulness of the
DTD, and while it may be well-intended to help the thesis writer avoid
dealing with complicated element definitions (what *is* a quotation?) and
presentational uncertainty (how can I guarantee that my quotations will
look the way I want?), I think it encourages the thesis writer to think of
markup as merely a way to get a presentational effect, rather than as an
analytical tool. In the short term, encoding one's thesis *somehow*
probably seems like the important goal. However, if we have any real
interest in using text markup as a constitutive part of our research
(rather than an unfortunately cumbersome way of preserving it in lucite),
we should start thinking of how to encourage young researchers to engage
early with the real analytical issues that text markup raises. How will
their research be used by other people? How can the encoding they use make
this easier? How can text encoding help people share research in the
future? If we think SGML is a good idea for dissertations, why not
subsequent research as well? and why not learn a DTD that is, as John Lamp
points out, "a fantastic DTD for its intended purpose" (or one that's as
good)? If dissertations are regarded as research that no one will want to
use, it's no wonder that it's so hard to make oneself write them :-)
I've become more fervent than I intended, but I do think that if SGML has a
future in humanities research it is as an analytical tool, not as an
archival format. After the initial plug I am trying to downplay my interest
in the TEI qua TEI, because I think the really important thing is to use a
DTD which lets you say important things about your data, whatever that DTD
may be. (A discussion of standards and their value is really a separate
topic.) To the extent that the ETD DTD does this, I applaud it, but it
looks to me as if it could take a more thoroughgoing approach.
best, Julia
Julia Flanders, Textbase Editor
Brown University Women Writers Project
Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
(401) 863-3835
>From Nick.Finke@Law.UC.Edu Wed Aug 6 10:25:04 1997
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From: Nick Finke
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
[For my own purposes this note selects only parts of John Lamp's message
and not necessarily in the original order]
At 7:27 PM -0400 8/5/97, John Lamp wrote:
>>On Tue, 5 Aug 1997 Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu wrote:
>>
>>> This, somewhat predictably, from a TEI user: is the DTD development at
>>> Virginia Tech starting from scratch? any thought of using TEI or TEI Lite?
>>> or other existing DTDs?
>>>
>>Indeed! I did suggest using ISO 12083...
>>Any thought on this?
>
>Yes, sticking blindly to existing DTDs is a dead end.
I could not agree more with this, but the operative word is "blindly".
>To me, the fundamental purpose of SGML is to capture the structure of a
>document for whatever purpose is intended for the document. Markup is not
>an end in itself, nor is there a "best" DTD in abstract terms.
I think this is very true, and I agree with John's characterization of ISO
12083 as not "encapsulating the essence of thesis structure". In my
opinion, the reason for this is that ISO 12083 is a DTD that aims to
facilitate the publication of the data it contains in hardcopy codex form.
That is its primary goal. It is not well set up to allow the data it
contains to be used for academic research.
>
>TEI is a fantastic DTD for its intended purpose. It's massive overkill for
>marking up a thesis for general research purposes.
I strongly disagree. One of the primary purposes of TEI is to encode text
for study. It was primarily designed by academics for their own use. To
accomplish its intended purposes, the TEI scheme allows inclusion of
elements and attributes for metadata of the sort that academics need. For
academic documents that work with text, E-dissertations can fit nicely into
the TEI scheme.
One key to understanding the TEI scheme is to realize that it gives the
user a wide selection of tools but that the user will only actually use the
ones needed. The TEI DTD is "massive" only in the resources it offers.
The actual DTD used usually includes only a fraction of what is available.
Nick Finke
**********************************************
Nicholas D. Finke Phone: (513) 556-0103
Center for Electronic Text in the Law Fax: (513) 556-6265
University of Cincinnati College of Law
P.O. Box 210142 Email:
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0142 nick.finke@law.uc.edu
**********************************************
>From Greg.MacGowan@Law.UC.Edu Wed Aug 6 13:32:10 1997
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 13:30:49 -0400
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Although Julia makes many strong comments about the advantages and
disadvantages
of the ETD DTD, I would like to focus on one comment in particular:
>In the short term, encoding one's thesis *somehow*
>probably seems like the important goal.
If we are to expect the students themselves to tag their dissertations, how
can we make the process as simple and clear as possible, first to avoid bad
tagging, and second to ensure consistent tagging (both within and between
documents)? Not all Ph.D. candidates will have the same level of desire for
wrestling with the tagging conundrums that so many of us take such great
pleasure in. (-;
It is also important to note, as someone did a few days ago, that
dissertation writers will already be wrestling with the confinements of a
stylesheet which specifies margins, spacing, etc. If e-dissertations were
to completely replace hardcopy dissertations, these confinements would
disappear and the DTD could completely ignore presentational factors.
However, since the 2 formats are sure to overlap for some time, I would
suggest that the stylesheet play a significant role in informing the DTD.
This may well result in a DTD that is, to some extent,
"presentation-oriented." This would make the DTD much easier to work with
from the user's point-of-view.
Greg MacGowan
>From hope.greenberg@uvm.edu Wed Aug 6 16:20:37 1997
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Given that (from recent posts):
- "sticking blindly to existing DTDs is a dead end."
- The TEI is . . ."massive overkill for marking up a thesis for general
research purposes."
- "think [the ead dtd] encourages the thesis writer to think of markup
as merely a way to get a presentational effect, rather than as an
analytical tool.
and seeing that:
- the ETD DTD appears to be a fairly comprehensive list of tags that
describe the thesis as it appears today
I wonder if we could frame the questions about e-dissertations a
slightly different way by stepping back a bit more. Yes, the meta data
that the TEI strives to contain is important and it, or something very
like it, should be a part of every etd. But what ther assumptions
should we make about the mark-up of an etd? The reasons for the
particular format of print theses and dissertations may be lost in
antiquity but we can take a few guesses. There's a larger margin on the
left side of a page than on the right to account for a binding. Lines
are double spaced to allow insertion of comments. Other features are set
certain ways for consistency, and I would guess that certain features
play a role in making the processing and cataloguing of thousands of
these things more efficient.
In other words, the work is designed to be printed on paper, bound,
catalogued, read by a committee, and eventually by other interested
scholars. To accommodate these readers and cataloguers the document has
taken a particular form. But creating an etd adds another player: making
a machine readable text means making a text readable by a machine.
(duh!) How does that change what a thesis/dissertation is? what it
does? how it functions?
If a thesis/dissertation is a written narrative of a given length that
describes, explores, and draws conclusions about a particular topic or
idea, and does so in a formally proscribed way, then a DTD that reflects
the current form of a t/d seems appropriate. If, however, the t/d is a
document that encapsulates a person's research on a topic and their
conclusions about that topic in whatever way is best suited to that
research and topic, then we have something quite different. And if that
document is never meant to be printed as a linear
intro/explication/conclusion narrative, then we have something more
complex yet.
Like the "baking ham" story* don't we know enough about electronic texts
at this point to leapfrog over the "first content of the new media is
the old media" phase and go right on to something better? Wouldn't this
be a wonderful time to examine the function and practice of the
thesis/dissertation before cramming it into a limiting model?
- Hope
---------------
Hope Greenberg
University of Vermont
http://www.uvm.edu/~hag
*The baking ham story: a friend watched with interest as the cook cut
the ends off a canned ham before baking it. When asked why the ham was
prepared this way, the cook replied that it was "the way Mom always did
it." Mom in turn answered that her mother had prepared the ham the same
way. Grandma, when asked, laughed and replied: "Yes, our only baking pan
was slightly shorter than the standard ham so we always had to cut the
ends off." The moral usually drawn from the story being, of course, that
tradition, while often grounded in practicality, usually takes on a life
of its own.
>From John.Lamp@infosys.utas.edu.au Wed Aug 6 18:22:39 1997
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From: John Lamp
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
>Perhaps the TEI DTD is not appropriate for all fields and purposes. Of
>course, there's nothing stopping anyone using it from just indicating
>paragraph breaks--the level of encoding is up to the individual. But one
>of the triumphs of the TEI DTD is its header, which allows for the
>detailed recording of bibliographic information and metadata, crucial
>for the longevity of any electronic file. There's no reason not to learn
>from and build upon other's work in this area.
And there's always the Dublin Core DTD for metadata. I've links to lots of
DTDs (but not the ETD as yet, sorry) at
http://lamp.infosys.utas.edu.au/net.html
Cheers
John
--
_--_|\ John Lamp, originating in Hobart, Tasmania
/ \ Phone: 03 6226 2375 - Fax: 03 6226 2913
\_.--._/ email: John.Lamp@infosys.utas.edu.au
v <--<< http://www.infosys.utas.edu.au/cgi/people/staff/jw_lamp
Department of Information Systems, University of Tasmania
GPO Box 252-87, Hobart 7001, Australia
** NOTE change of address **
>From guedon@ERE.UMontreal.CA Wed Aug 6 20:20:10 1997
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Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 20:18:36 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Guedon Jean-Claude
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
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On Wed, 6 Aug 1997 Greg.MacGowan@LAW.UC.EDU wrote:
> Although Julia makes many strong comments about the advantages and
> disadvantages
> of the ETD DTD, I would like to focus on one comment in particular:
>
> >In the short term, encoding one's thesis *somehow*
> >probably seems like the important goal.
>
> If we are to expect the students themselves to tag their dissertations, how
> can we make the process as simple and clear as possible, first to avoid bad
> tagging, and second to ensure consistent tagging (both within and between
> documents)? Not all Ph.D. candidates will have the same level of desire for
> wrestling with the tagging conundrums that so many of us take such great
> pleasure in. (-;
Universities should do the tagging according to some agreed-upon, open
norm and, to that end, should develop or identify good cheap conversion
tools that should be part of some set-up similar to what allowed Linux to
get moving nicely.
Best,
Jean-Claude Guédon
>From m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu Wed Aug 6 21:49:39 1997
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From: m.mcfarland@mail.utexas.edu (Mark McFarland)
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Cc: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
At 8:18 PM 8/6/97, Guedon Jean-Claude wrote:
>On Wed, 6 Aug 1997 Greg.MacGowan@LAW.UC.EDU wrote:
>
>> Although Julia makes many strong comments about the advantages and
>> disadvantages
>> of the ETD DTD, I would like to focus on one comment in particular:
>>
>> >In the short term, encoding one's thesis *somehow*
>> >probably seems like the important goal.
>>
>> If we are to expect the students themselves to tag their dissertations, how
>> can we make the process as simple and clear as possible, first to avoid bad
>> tagging, and second to ensure consistent tagging (both within and between
>> documents)? Not all Ph.D. candidates will have the same level of desire for
>> wrestling with the tagging conundrums that so many of us take such great
>> pleasure in. (-;
>
>Universities should do the tagging according to some agreed-upon, open
>norm and, to that end, should develop or identify good cheap conversion
>tools that should be part of some set-up similar to what allowed Linux to
>get moving nicely.
We are preparing to markup a finding aid using the
EAD DTD and we located a vendor (Interface Electronics)
who has developed a markup tool (called Internet Archivist)
specifically designed for the EAD tag set-I'm anxious to get a
look at this software-before we found this we were
planning on doing the markup in Word styles then letting
Dynatext parse the file...we'll serve it up using the Dynaweb server.
Of course, we may still use Word, but we'll see...
Yes, I think a good tool set is real important to making
authors feel warm and cozy about marking up their stuff.
Mark McFarland
UT Austin-General Libraries
>From Julia_Flanders@Brown.edu Thu Aug 7 11:17:09 1997
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Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 11:18:43 -0400
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: Re: E-dissertations
Greg MacGowan said:
>However, since the 2 formats are sure to overlap for some time, I would
>suggest that the stylesheet play a significant role in informing the DTD.
>This may well result in a DTD that is, to some extent,
>"presentation-oriented." This would make the DTD much easier to work with
>from the user's point-of-view.
I think the style sheet is absolutely the place to handle presentational
information, not the DTD. But surely this doesn't make the DTD itself
presentation-oriented--rather the contrary, since it frees up the element
definitions to address issues of content and structure, and makes it
absolutely clear to the encoder/writer that the elements should be used
*for their meaning* and not to achieve a presentational effect. This would
insure against problems like future changes in the required formatting of
theses, or differences between formatting requirements at different
institutions or in different countries.
>If we are to expect the students themselves to tag their dissertations, how
>can we make the process as simple and clear as possible, first to avoid bad
>tagging, and second to ensure consistent tagging (both within and between
>documents)?
Perhaps this could be a role for e-text centers to play: providing style
sheets and guidelines on how to use them, and also providing the necessary
tools for learning basic text encoding. I am strongly hopeful that the
available encoding/editing software will continue to improve to the point
where it's not a huge hassle to get set up--I think that the *intellectual*
process of encoding is not difficult at all, it's just that it's
technologically cumbersome at the moment.
Best, Julia
Julia Flanders, Textbase Editor
Brown University Women Writers Project
Julia_Flanders@brown.edu
(401) 863-3835
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 18:18:20 -0400
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From: mgk3k@faraday.clas.virginia.edu
To: ETEXTCTR-L@cornell.edu
Subject: electronic dissertations and all that
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I'm coming to this thread late, having just joined the list today.
Much of the discussion so far has revolved around the question of
whether any one encoding standard (ETD-ML, TEI, etc.) is appropriate
for all dissertations, a class of documents which, as has been pointed
out, share little in the way of common content. Implicit in just about
all of this, however, has been the assumption that what we mean by ETD
are essentially print-oriented documents converted to some electronic
format for submission and distribution. As I tried to argue in my
paper on electronic dissertations at the recent ACH-ALLC, however,
this is really only half a definition:
"Most broadly, I will say that this term [ETD] applies to any thesis
or dissertation that is submitted, archived, and distributed solely or
at least primarily in an electronic format. Such a dissertation might
be written on any conceivable subject, and need avail itself of no
method of presentation or organization that could not be duplicated on
paper. The relevant contexts for discussions of ETDs of this sort are
primarily library science, document encoding, and information
retrieval. Now in addition to this "plain vanilla" model, electronic
thesis or dissertation can also mean something like hypertext or
multimedia dissertation -- that is, a dissertation which is not only
submitted, archived and accessible solely in an electronic format, but
which is also self-conscious of its medium and which uses an
electronic environment to support scholarship which could not be
undertaken in print. Examples of this might include a dissertation
consisting of a set of non-linear hypertext documents, or a
dissertation containing not only of text or perhaps text and
illustrations, but also digital sound, video, animations, and
interactive three-dimensional models. Here ETDs must be discussed not
only in terms of library science and related fields, but also in
relation to much larger questions about the nature of scholarly work
dissertations have traditionally been expected to perform. In other
words, for some, ETDs raise questions of decorum."
Though plain vanilla ETDs are without question more numerous (largely
as a result of Virginia Tech's work in this area; the early
initiatives at Tech are the wellspring of the NDLTD proposal and also,
so it seems to me, UMI's current passion for serving newly received
dissertations online as PDF files), there are also, increasingly,
electronic theses and dissertations written as documents intended
exlcusively for electronic environments. The web site which I
maintain, and which Julia graciously mentioned early on in the
discussion is devoted to
collecting ETDs of this latter type, which we might also refer to as
"first-generation ETDs."
There has, I think, been some confusion stemming from a conflation of
first-generation ETDs with those of the plain vanilla sort. Perry
Willet (hi Perry), for example:
>I'm glad to hear that a DTD is being developed, because it seems
>to me that until everyone is using the same DTD, it would be very
>hard if not impossible to count on any particular dissertation to
>be preserved and usable in the long term. Virginia Tech has gone
>a long way in the right direction, but this last step is critical.
>I'm reassured somewhat by looking at their web page--my initial alarm
>was based upon Matt Kirshenbaum's page at UVa, where he lists a
>number of e-theses underway, to be published on various media in
>various formats, none of which sounded very permanent to me. But
>with the development of a DTD, then everyone could format their
>theses the same way, with uniform documentation. Good new
Bracketing for a moment the question of permanence and sustainability,
the key point here is this: the projects listed at my Web site (which
I don't in any way publish or sponsor or underwrite, btw) are theses
and dissertations intended to be native to electonic media. An
encoding standard which might work well for print-based theses, such
as ETD-ML or TEI, would be inadequate for their purposes. This is not
just a question of needing to accomodate images or non-linear
documents and "linking"; many of the projects at my site, for example,
take innovative graphic and interface desgin as a key element; just as
we wouldn't (I don't think) imagine encoding a hypertext novel like
Michael Joyce's _afternoon_ in TEI (say), it's likewise wrongheaded to
think of encoding these first-generation electronic documents with any
standard conceived with what is fundamentally a print orientation.
Non-proprietary standards are important then, absolutely, but it's
also important that we not muddle the issue by mixing our mediums. Nor
would I want to see a situation where the availability of a set of
standardized guidelines for electronic dissertations resulted in their
being imposed on some luckless student by an adminstrative committee
that didn't fully understand all of the issues involved, but which was
grateful for a "solution" to the "problem" posed by a student wishing
to submit an electronic dissertation.
Hope Greenberg writes:
>don't we know enough about electronic texts at this point to leapfrog
over the >"first content of the new media is the old media" phase and
go right on to >something better? Wouldn't this be a wonderful time to
examine the function and >practice of the thesis/dissertation before
cramming it into a limiting model?
This is exactly to the point. One of the most eloquent voices I know
on these matters is a name probably little known in these parts:
Charles Bernstein, a poet and critic whose essay "Frame Lock" calls
into question the monologic positivism of so much academic writing,
the sort of thing theses and dissertations are all too often the
breeding grounds for. Likewise, if I can be excused for quoting myself
from my ACH-ALLC paper one more time:
". . . a shift to new technologies of writing and new modes of
academic production necessarily entails a critical examination of the
dominant, normalized, and therefore often transparent codes of
mainstream academic discourse. Theses and dissertations are
particularly significant in this regard as they are by definition the
first major academic project a scholar will undertake. Surely some
professional self-scrutiny at this stage of a career is both healthy
and desirable."
I don't promise that every one of the projects listed in my ETD
directory evinces the "something better" that Hope writes of. But
collectively I think they're a start.
--Matt
=====================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ The Blake Archive | IATH
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 20:04:02 -0400 (EDT)
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From: mgk3k@faraday.clas.virginia.edu
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Subject: Re: electronic dissertations and all that
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Two corrections:
> the discussion is devoted to
I managed to mistype my own URL; the correct address is:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ETD/ETD.html
And:
> Bracketing for a moment the question of permanence and sustainability, the
> key point here is this: the projects listed at my Web site (which I don't in
> any way publish or sponsor or underwrite, btw) are theses and dissertations
> intended to be native to electonic media. An encoding standard which might
Some ambiguous phrasing here: I "publish" the web site itself,
but not any of the individual projects it documents (except, I
suppose, my own).
--Matt
===================================================================
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum University of Virginia
mgk3k@virginia.edu Department of English
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/ The Blake Archive | IATH
