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Why a theory about publishing?
Why talk about digital publishing from the point of view of theory? The main reason is that publishing is an epistemic event: it organizes and conveys knowledge, in ways that are meant to have lasting validity. In this light, a theoretical discussion about publishing emerges not only as appropriate, but as necessary.
The need arises from the fact that the full potential of digital publishing had not been adequately recognized. This is not the place for developing a full website theory – which I have discussed in a number of publications and presentations, and in the Cybernetica Mesopotamica website dedicated to the wider project within which the UGR fits. A full discussion is reserved for a separate website, digital discourse, in preparation.
Here I will review the argument in function of how it applies to the UGR, under thw two headings of Principles and Uses..
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a. Principles
The concept of “digital discourse” points to a new epistemic system, one that is at variance with the current standard use of websites, and in particular scholarly websites. A digital discourse implies that an argument has to be developed in a discursive manner that fully exploits the potential of the digital medium.
To this end, we will consider two particular aspects of how an argument is constructed, looking at how they are developed in a non digital environment, in contrast to how they are reconfigured in the current standard use of websites.
- Sequentiality implies that an argument be unfolding in a coherent succession of linked statements that aim to attribute meaning to what has otherwise remained so far unknow. This has been reduced in standard websites to a provess that aims to elicit control over what is already known.
- Linearity implies that an argument be seen as developing within a well defined context, a “line” being the symbol of a structured whole, with a beginning and an end. By contrast, “non-linearity,” in the common sense of the word, implies a lack of the sense of the whole.
Interplanarity is the proposed new system, where the search for meaning (as per seauentiality) and hte sense of the whole (as per linearity) are raised to a higher level, made possible by the digital medium, one that allows the argument to span over vast domain of interlced planes.
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b. Uses
A browser edition is a complex epistemic system which requires, in order to be properly used, a new set of mental templates.
This section deals with system design from a theoretical point of view, aiming to show what these mental templates ought to be. The actual implementation will be presented below.
We first deal with the physiognomy of a digital book: what is its epistemic dimension as distinct from a standard website?
Then we look at what new mental attitudes are requires for reading and writing su h a new system for conveying knowledge.
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Web-based and disk-based editions
Browsers are typically associated with “web”-“sites”: the “site” is the location on the worldwide web where one can access the knowledge content that is stored there.
In principle, however, a browser edition is not limited to the worldwide web. Conceptually, a digital book is a browser edition, and as such it can be disk-based. For a large system like the UGR, where many digital books are interconnected, it is in fact next to impossible to compress all the data with the interconnected links on a systame that is not connected to the worldwide web.
publications for two main reasons. The first is that on disk we can offer high resolution images, which would inordinately slow down normal web use. The second is that a disk publication provides
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