Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 1, No. 40. Thursday, 30 Aug 1990.
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 17:32:12 EDT
From: Ken Steele <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subject: Ideas for SHAKSPER
A number of suggestions have been made about possible new features
of the Shakespeare Electronic Conference, and I would like to throw
them out for comments and discussion from SHAKSPEReans as a whole.
The electronic medium, the nature of the network, and the abilities of
the Fileserver all conspire to make it particularly feasible to post
cumulative data files for member contribution and retrieval. I have in
mind the sort of file exemplified by the RIVERSID ERRORS SHAKSPER
file, one which is of general interest and/or utility, and which
SHAKSPEReans working together can make a more complete and up-to-
date resource than is available elsewhere. Member suggestions so far
have included a list of Shakespeare videotape and film resources, a
core bibliography of criticism, and a list of current Shakespeare
dissertations or works in progress.
Some suggestions in the SHAKSPER GUIDE which have yet to be
realized include the possibility of posting ASCII Shakespeare texts on
the SHAKSPER Fileserver for retrieval by members. Members could
use whatever text retrieval software they prefer to index and utilize
these files. Obviously the files would have to be non-copyright texts,
and for the textual scholars amongst us, the original quarto and folio
texts would probably be preferable. Perhaps we could divide the work
of scanning, proofing, editing, and tagging our own texts, or perhaps
someone knows of texts which could be made available. Does anyone
feel strongly whether this would or would not be worthwhile?
It also seems to me that reviews of critical books or articles would be
particularly appropriate on SHAKSPER. These would not necessarily be
formal reviews, requiring much time or effort -- members could simply
write brief paragraphs on something they had read of interest that
week or month, and send it to the list. New trendy articles or classic
tomes of criticism would be equally interesting to most of us, I suspect.
We could rotate daily responsibility among a group of volunteers, or
simply hope that the contributions would flow in regularly on their own.
Any opinions or suggestions?
Do any of you have any other suggestions for services or features
which SHAKSPER could offer its members, or which its members could
offer SHAKSPER? Any features of other electronic discussion groups
which seem suggestive? Any needs which go unfilled by more
traditional media? I look forward to seeing your responses.
Yours,
Ken Steele
Editor, SHAKSPER
University of Toronto
<This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
or <KSTEELE@utorepas>