And
herein lies some of the problem. I'm a college professor, and I recently
earned my PhD. I would have had a hard time getting a rtext past my
professors without being able to document who published it. I would have a
hard time making a citation to a document with no pages. I would be very
annoyed with a student who just pointed to something on the net that had no
provenance whatsoever- even many pieces of ephemera have provenance. I
don't think this is a matter of fuddy-duddy professors who just don't understand
how wonderful e-books are; I think the very concept of e-books as it now
stands, while excellent for casual readers or people who simply want to educate
themselves, is deeply flawed. When I am citing a text, I cannot refer to a vague
document. I need to know EXACTLY when the original was published, who
published it, and where, since there are variant texts out there. Even a
single word change that might have occurred in the copying process could change
the meaning of a vital sentence. PG is wonderful- but as a student and a
teacher, I don't think that most cybertexts provide the citability that is so
important for academics. If PG was the only source in the world for vital texts,
that would be one thing- but it isn't.
I love
PG, and I sned students to it all the time- but only for the purpose of
reading. I would not seend a student to a PG text in order to make a
citation. I have no way of knowing where many of the texts came from,
whether the edition copied was a variant on the original, what page the
information appeared on inthe original copy, or anything else. In the social
sciences and liberal arts, these things are very important. It is the soul of
how we check for plagiarism, understand the history of a work, and make specific
references. PG is great for when I want to read a Tom Swift book or understand
the human genome - but it doesn't help me if I need to explain the migration in
the ideas of Franz Boas over time and through eiditions of his works or
examine the changes between editions of Dust Tracks on the
Road.
Instead of worrying about perfection, we would be
better advised to fix the many texts which are or have become unreadable. It
is also uncomfortable, when there are several translations of a work with the
same title and an anonymous translator to havve the publisher routinely
or randomly removed. Also there are many DOS texts with accents that are hence
unreadable. Any code page should be acceptable? maybe but. . .
Also although there are explicit directions for
submitting a text, correcting one or updataing one, even one I contributed,
has apparently no explicit provision. Also, at random apparently, a little
preamble I have added to help the reader identify the text or its possible
shortcomings is removed.
Although many texts shave no unique provenance as
MH has advised, but that is no reason for removing any hint of preovenance
when one is supplied by a contributor.