A Modest Proposal (no babies): Book History Wiki

[Matt Schneider]

While I personally don't have the know-how to head this project, I
thought it would be quite useful if there were a book history related
Wiki. For those unfamiliar with the concept of a wiki, it's a
webpage/encyclopedia that is 100% user editable. With a book history
wiki, members of SHARP (and the general internet) would be able to
post and revise articles and pages concerning different aspects of
book history, such as basic definitions, book anatomy, major players
in the field, and lists of books about books (such as those that have
appeared in this latest wave of e-mails). As I have said earlier, I
don't have the know-how to head such a project, but I would gladly
contribute to the effort if anyone could take this one up.

--Matt Schneider

[Daniel O'Donnell]

Wikis are extremely easy to set up. I could set one up as a start while
we looked for permanent hosting.

-d

Post by Matt Schneider
While I personally don't have the know-how to head this project, I
thought it would be quite useful if there were a book history related
Wiki. For those unfamiliar with the concept of a wiki, it's a
webpage/encyclopedia that is 100% user editable. With a book history
wiki, members of SHARP (and the general internet) would be able to
post and revise articles and pages concerning different aspects of
book history, such as basic definitions, book anatomy, major players
in the field, and lists of books about books (such as those that have
appeared in this latest wave of e-mails). As I have said earlier, I
don't have the know-how to head such a project, but I would gladly
contribute to the effort if anyone could take this one up.
--Matt Schneider

[Wim Van Mierlo]

There is already a Wiki, not for Book History, but for the related
subject of Textual Scholarship at
http://www.textualscholarship.org/wiki.html. It was set up by Barbara
Bordalejo from Birmingham University (and is loosely associated with the
European Society for Textual Scholarship
[http://www.textualscholarship.org/ests/]).

Wim

(Dr) Wim Van Mierlo
Institute of English Studies
School of Advanced Study
University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

www.ies.sas.ac.uk

Post by Matt Schneider
While I personally don't have the know-how to head this project, I
thought it would be quite useful if there were a book history related
Wiki.

[Roy Johnson]

This is an excellent initiative - but I must warn readers that the Wiki has
already been hacked in such a way that the index of contents pages is a list
of links to fairly robust porn sites.

Dr Roy Johnson
MANTEX Information Design
http://www.mantex.co.uk
Tel: [phone]
***@mantex.co.uk
http://mantex.blogspot.com


-----Original Message-----
From: SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing
[mailto:SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wim Van Mierlo
Sent: 08 September 2006 10:41
To: SHARP-***@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal (no babies): Book History Wiki

There is already a Wiki, not for Book History, but for the related
subject of Textual Scholarship at
http://www.textualscholarship.org/wiki.html. It was set up by Barbara
Bordalejo from Birmingham University (and is loosely associated with the
European Society for Textual Scholarship
[http://www.textualscholarship.org/ests/]).

Wim

(Dr) Wim Van Mierlo
Institute of English Studies
School of Advanced Study
University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

www.ies.sas.ac.uk

Post by Matt Schneider
While I personally don't have the know-how to head this project, I
thought it would be quite useful if there were a book history related
Wiki.

[Rimi B. Chatterjee]

--- Roy Johnson <***@MANTEX.CO.UK> wrote:

the Wiki has

Post by Roy Johnson
already been hacked in such a way that the index of
contents pages is a list
of links to fairly robust porn sites.

You don't need to hack a wiki to do that. Anyone can
modify stuff from anywhere. Wikipedia deals with it by
having teams of admins continually monitor changes and
revert them if they look like vandalism or promotion.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. If we do
start a wiki, we'll have to put in some fairly
intensive care and feeding time on a regular basis.
The wikipedia policies and system is quite a
fascinating editors' community, BTW.

Dr Rimi B. Chatterjee
Lecturer
Department of English
Jadavpur University
Kolkata 700 032
http://rimibchatterjee.net/
http://writinginpractice.blogspot.com/

[Rimi B. Chatterjee]

A book history Wiki sounds like a great idea,
especially given our geographical scatter. It would
also codify much of the knowledge embedded in the
archives of this listserv in an easily accessible
format. Are we thinking of something on the lines of
wikipedia? We could also tap into the expertise of
'occasional' book history scholars, industry people
and enthusiasts who might know a lot about one or two
publishers or texts but would never publish articles
in *Book History* or a similar locus.

Dr Rimi B. Chatterjee
Lecturer
Department of English
Jadavpur University
Kolkata 700 032
http://rimibchatterjee.net/
http://writinginpractice.blogspot.com/

[Kirsten MacLeod]

I have discussed the Book History Wiki with Gary Kelly, a Canada
Research Chair at the University of Alberta, and he would be
interested in hosting this project. He has a Humanities Computing
Studio that hosts a number of book-history related sites including
Revolution and Romanticism, Canadian Magazines, the Paperback
Revolution, Eritrean Print and Oral Culture, etc. He is a member of
SHARP, but not of the listserv. If you would like to pursue this
further with him, feel free to contact him at ***@ualberta.ca.

Kirsten MacLeod