Robert B. Townsend, "Lessons Learned: Five Years in Cyberspace," Perspectives 39 (2001): 3-5.

SYNOPSIS:

Townsend describes the high costs and potentially high benefits of electronic scholarship and suggests that historians consider new forms for journal articles and monographs. He considers many of the digital publications to be little more than minor adaptations of the traditional print forms and calls for a scholarship that takes full advantage of the digital technologies.

EXCERPT:

"It is now clear that these sorts of publications require an enormous amount of thought and effort beyond the basic work of research and writing. The process of creating historical scholarship that is truly intended for the electronic medium requires reconceptualizing the materials from the ground up to take full advantage of the electronic medium." (4)