Open Access Archivangelism

In the online age, page/line-based quotation is obsolete (for current and forward-going text). Pages are and have always been arbitrary entities. A document's natural landmarks are sections, paragraphs and sentences. That is how quotations and passages should be cited, not by page numbers (though page numbers can be added in parens as a courtesy and curiosity, for continuity, for the time being, while pages -- and PDF -- scroll inexorably toward their natural demise).

It goes without saying that all quotations, citations and references should be hyperlinked. I am sure that XML documents will be tagged for section number, paragraph number and sentence number, so that it will be natural not only to pinpoint the passage to which one wishes to refer but to hyperlink directly to it (especially for quote/commenting).

This answers, in passing, one faint concern about the self-archiving of authors' final refereed drafts instead of the published PDF: "How will I specify the location of passages I wish to single out or quote?" The answer is paragraph numbers (or, if you want to be even more precise, section numbers, paragraph numbers and sentence spans). They have the virtue of not only being autonomous and ascertainable from the document itself, but they are independent of arbitrary pagination and PDF. (They will also be useful for digitometric analyses.)

(I proposed this rather trivial and obvious online solution in Psycoloquy in the early 90's -- though I'm sure I wasn't the first -- and APA at last began recommending it in 2001 or so.)

Harnad, S. (1995) Interactive Cognition: Exploring the Potential of Electronic Quote/Commenting. In: B. Gorayska & J.L. Mey (Eds.) Cognitive Technology: In Search of a Humane Interface. Elsevier. Pp. 397-414.

Light, P., Light, V., Nesbitt, E. & Harnad, S. (2000) Up for Debate: CMC as a support for course related discussion in a campus university setting. In R. Joiner (Ed) Rethinking Collaborative Learning. London: Routledge.

Harnad, S. (2003/2004) Back to the Oral Tradition Through Skywriting at the Speed of Thought. Interdisciplines. Retour à la tradition orale: écrire dans le ciel à la vitesse de la pensée. Dans: Salaün, Jean-Michel & Vendendorpe, Christian (réd.). Le défis de la publication sur le web: hyperlectures, cybertextes et méta-éditions. Presses de l'enssib.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum