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The launching of a new on-line journal, Mémoires du livre, provides an opportunity to establish an inventory, both
retrospective and prospective, of e-publishing in the fields of social sciences
and humanities. Over the past decade, the growing popularity of e-publishing has
given rise to passionate debates, combining scientific, political, economic and
even ideological arguments1. Specific concepts
have been created, and a new lexicon used by researchers has progressively made
its way into the academic language, with terms such as open archives, collecting
metadata, pre-print, post-print, journal portals, retrospective electronic
filing, etc. Actually, a large majority of journals at the moment have changed
or will change to electronic formats, although this does not necessarily exclude
hard copies. In short, the electronic revolution in the field of publishing in
humanities has indeed taken place. It is therefore important to map it out, to
write its history, to observe its effects and to attempt to determine its long-term
consequences. This thematic issue will therefore explore the following subjects,
presented in a chronological perspective: historical overviews of the e-publishing
phenomenon, a contemporary account of the subject at hand, and potential
prospective aims.
A rhetorical analysis of the numerous discourses on e-publishing in social
sciences and humanities, as well as an account of the arguments used, would
allow researchers to better grasp the issues at hand. A study of the evolutions
of techniques and standards and of various initiatives and aborted projects
would be equally useful, as would be an overview of concurrent visions vying to
provide electronic alternatives.
In the perspective of a contemporary account, an inventory of current
resources would allow researchers to identify the various strategies that enable
a change to a digitized format. In addition, it would be significant to focus on
the real costs entailed by changing to digitized formats and on the economic
models that have been developed in order to meet these costs. Notwithstanding
the social presence of the researcher (through his contribution to blogs, among
other things) and the unsupervised uses of scientific publications (for example
in on-line forums)2, what impacts has the increased availability of knowledge had
on the greater public? As for the legal aspect of this question, what are the
advantages and disadvantages of new licences, the Creative Commons, which were
created in order to allow the publication and dissemination of all digitized
content?
The prospective aims of e-publishing, the most sensitive part of this
particular matter, gives rise to a number of questions that demand answers : the
academic journal does indeed seem to be the type of publication that has best
succeeded in the change to a digitized format, but is it the only one? If the
article is henceforth a privileged channel of dissemination in research, will
the development of digitized reading equipment (e-books) renew our interest in
publications in the field of humanities? Can we hope to see new media created
through the yet untapped possibilities of digitization? In short, we are
witnessing the very first steps of electronic publication of social sciences and
humanities, a medium which can no longer be ignored.
Proposals, of approximately twenty lines in length, are to be sent by email
to Karine Vachon (Karine.Vachon@USherbrooke.ca),
who is co-editing this issue with Björn-Olav Dozo (Université de Liège), no
later than November 30th 2008. Following the selection committee's evaluation,
answers will be sent by December 20th, 2008. Accepted articles must be sent by
April 20th, 2009. They will then be sent to the reading committee and returned
with their report. Final versions must be sent by June 30th, 2009. This issue is
scheduled to appear in Fall 2009.
To learn about Mémoires du livre, read the
e-journal presentation.
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1 La Scholarly Electronic Publishing
Bibliography (http://www.digital-scholarship.org/sepb/) recense et
sélectionne les documents en anglais utiles à la compréhension des efforts de
publication savante électronique sur Internet.
2 Pierre MOUNIER, « L'édition en ligne : un
nouvel eldorado? », Blogo Numericus, 22/05/2008,
http://blog.homo-numericus.net/spip.php?article154, consulté le 25 mai 2008.
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