kris foster wrote:
this is a dangerous reliance on a transitory medium. electronic citation is merely more convenient.
What makes medium permanence a value per se ? Academia has developed its traditions around a medium (papyrus, paper) that is permanent. Not the other way around. If the medium they had used was impermanent the methods and traditions of Academia would be different today. Medium permanence can be a big disadvantage too. The scholars in the middle ages relied blindly on Aristotle. Scientific method in the middle ages amounted to find out what Aristotle said about some subject, and that was that. Own research was not deemed a scientific method. Of course, Aristotle said that "wood swims and metal sinks" and that "heavier items fall faster than lighter ones". -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org