[Open-access] High versus low tech

Sat Jun 7 14:59:54 UTC 2014

As you probably have gathered, I like wikis 
http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Main_Page

I regard myself first and foremost as a specialist, and I see technology 
as a means to an end. As long as it serves the end, then it works, for 
me.  So I use a wiki, which must be one of the simplest pieces of 
technology ever invented, at least _to use_.  No doubt it is more 
complex under the bonnet. I have built some tools to make the wiki 
friendlier to the use to which I put it. E.g. I make heavy use of 
parallel Latin-English tables 
http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Duns_Scotus/Ordinatio/Ordinatio_I/Prologus/P4Q1 
, and so I have off-wiki software, essentially Word VBA, to convert Word 
tables, comments and footnotes into wiki tables, footnotes and 
hoverboxes.  I use the free edition of Paint that came with my PC to 
edit the pictures where necessary. Apart from this slight customisation, 
I use the wiki as it is.

My main specialism is (1) the ability to transcribe stuff like this 
http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/File:Worcester_13_5ra_Bacon.jpg into 
ASCII Latin, which takes a bit of work and training, and (2) to 
translate the ASCII Latin from a particular period (early 14C) into 
English.  Which is as it should be. My impression, however, is that many 
actors in the open source movement are focused on technology, rather 
than specialist domain knowledge.  And this makes for a problem, I 
think.  There is a great paper by Peter Robinson, published in 2005 but 
still relevant, about how specialists still prefer the traditional tools 
of their trade, i.e. print media.

---
§ 18 This gulf between the actual technical skills of scholars and those 
demanded of the publication systems should not come as a surprise. 
Translate the terms of this discussion to the print world. No-one would 
expect a scholar, having written a book, to set the type, make the 
paper, choose, configure, set up, run, and maintain the printing press, 
operate the binding machines, pack the books into boxes, store them, and 
finally take care of their marketing and distribution. These are exactly 
the tasks that, for five hundred years now, publishers have done for 
scholars. But the disappearance of publishers from the field of 
electronic scholarly publication has left us with a problem. Who, in 
their absence, is to do the equivalent for a digital publication?
(Peter Robinson, Digital Medievalist, April 20, 2005) 
http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/1.1/robinson
---

Is he right, do you think?

Edward