Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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OVERVIEW OF DIGITAL CLASSICS CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE
Requirements of Cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure for Classics
A number of recent research studies have explored some of the potential needs of a cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure
for classics, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g the development of work<strong>in</strong>g paper repositories, the creation of new collaborative
models for scholarship and teach<strong>in</strong>g, the requirement of open data and collections, and the large
variety of services that will be necessary.
Open-Access Repositories of Secondary Scholarship
Two recent studies have focused on the potential of open-access repositories for classical studies (Ober
et al. 2007, Pritchard 2008). Ober et al. discussed the creation of the open-access work<strong>in</strong>g papers
repository, the Pr<strong>in</strong>ceton Stanford Work<strong>in</strong>g Papers <strong>in</strong> Classics (PSWPC), 589 and exam<strong>in</strong>ed the
potential benefits of electronic publish<strong>in</strong>g and the relationship of “work<strong>in</strong>g papers” to traditional
publish<strong>in</strong>g. The PSWPC is a web-based repository that is open to the faculty and graduate students of
Stanford and Pr<strong>in</strong>ceton, and the papers are not formally peer reviewed. Nonetheless, many contributors
have put up prepr<strong>in</strong>ts or work<strong>in</strong>g papers that eventually were formally published. The creation of this
repository has raised a number of issues regard<strong>in</strong>g long-term access and preservation, which might be
better guaranteed by a commercial archive. The authors def<strong>in</strong>e three processes as the traditional roles
of scholarly publish<strong>in</strong>g—mak<strong>in</strong>g research public, certification, and archiv<strong>in</strong>g—and propose that
certification, or peer review, is the most important role of traditional publish<strong>in</strong>g.
While the authors acknowledge that the only assurance of value of the work<strong>in</strong>g papers <strong>in</strong> the PSWPC
is the academic stand<strong>in</strong>g of the two classics departments at Pr<strong>in</strong>ceton and Stanford that host the
repository, they po<strong>in</strong>t out that a large amount of traditional publisher peer review is relatively
undemand<strong>in</strong>g. 590 They suggest that a dist<strong>in</strong>ction needs to be made between “prepr<strong>in</strong>t/work<strong>in</strong>g paper”
archiv<strong>in</strong>g and postpr<strong>in</strong>t archiv<strong>in</strong>g, or the archiv<strong>in</strong>g of a paper that has already been formally published.
One disappo<strong>in</strong>tment they noted was that neither the APA nor the AIA had yet created large work<strong>in</strong>g
paper repositories for the entire discipl<strong>in</strong>e. Ober et al. offer a number of recommendations for
humanities scholars <strong>in</strong> work<strong>in</strong>g toward open access. The first is to promote pre- and postpr<strong>in</strong>t archiv<strong>in</strong>g
to the largest extent possible; the second is to get the larger professional organizations <strong>in</strong>volved. The
authors also suggest that academic authors fight harder to reta<strong>in</strong> their copyrights, and that all
<strong>in</strong>stitutions <strong>in</strong> higher education should “move to greater flexibility <strong>in</strong> consider<strong>in</strong>g what counts as
‘publication’ <strong>in</strong> the new electronic media” (Ober et al. 2007).
A recent paper by David Pritchard provided an external look at the PSWPC and explored the large
issues of open access, cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, and classics. The PSWPC had been far more successful than
it anticipated, report<strong>in</strong>g almost 2,000 downloads a week <strong>in</strong> September 2007. Pritchard suggested that
the PSWPC fulfilled two important scholarly tasks: (1) mak<strong>in</strong>g a far greater wealth of classical
scholarship available to a wider audience; and (2) help<strong>in</strong>g authors solicit feedback and f<strong>in</strong>d a greater
audience for their work. He proposed that there were four reasons for the success of the PSWPC. First,
it allowed specialists to share research. The second reason was the already “entrenched use of
589 http://www.pr<strong>in</strong>ceton.edu/~pswpc/<strong>in</strong>dex.html
590 A recent blog post by Kent Anderson at “The Scholarly Kitchen” has provided an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g look at the vary<strong>in</strong>g processes and quality of peer review
by different commercial publishers (http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2010/03/30/improv<strong>in</strong>g-peer-review-lets-provide-an-<strong>in</strong>gredients-list-for-ourreaders/).
In addition, a recent article by (Bankier and Perciali 2008) has suggested that the creation of peer-reviewed open-access journals may help
revitalize digital repositories and provide a natural publish<strong>in</strong>g outlet for universities.