Quick History of Humanities Computing A- and P-WWW
Major Branches Ante WWW
- Archival:
- republishing of canonical works (outside of copyright)--exs.
- publishing/republishing of un-published and/or unavailable works--exs. (samples in our archive)
- language corpora and databases: Exs. the Brown and Lund Corpuses,Middle English, UPenn, OGI, now BNC and COBUILD. See the lists of Michael Barlow at Rice and/or Utrecht.
- Analytic:
- concordances and reference works--the hottest latest thing is EAD--Encoded Archival Description--as sampled here.
- word search and analysis--Studies of syntax, word distribution, sytle, authorship determination. Often used TACT--as briefly in the Pater sample from CETH here.
- CIC: Computer Assisted Instruction in Composition--(asynchronous) posting and exchange of drafts of papers and (synchronous) chat sessions (especially using Daedalus after the UT model).
Summary: This work was and continues to be done very much in the objective mode. Written texts are primary and the technology provides tools to study and display it. In their hearts, CAI instructors may value the online discourse as much or more as the products emerging from the printer, but that is unofficial.
Post WWW
The Web and multimodal computing emerged together in the 90's, producing a triad of traits characterizing a new medium: the multimodal, hyperlinked, interactive site or web. We include here
- art:
- 'zines
- rich webs such as George Landow's Victorian web now online
Summary: Emerging is a new sense of etext as unbounded (and impermanent) and visual and a new taste for "webbiness"--multiple paths with surprises and a sense of inexhaustible plenitude.
George L. Dillon
University of Washington