Electronic publication: introduction

Art history straddles the digital divide. Its pedagogical practices have been transformed by digital technology,but its scholarship remains wedded to the printed page. Important investments in digital image libraries, multimedia laboratories andelectronic classrooms have created a new infrastructure and allowed art historians to convert from slides to scans, but the forces thathave transformed the classroom, library and scholar's desk have yet to enhance publishing options. The field's born-digital,peer-reviewed journals are limited to 19th-Century Art Worldwide and caa.reviews , which, as their names imply, are limited in scope. The journals of record are not published digitally, although backissues are available online through JSTOR .

The absence of electronic publishing outlets tailored to art history has several explanations, some legal, sometechnical, some based on scholarly traditions. Copyright owners have curtailed access to digital materials, and entry barriers onuniversity sites deter electronic publication. The delivery, display, and manipulation of high-quality digital images as well asthe preservation of digital materials present technical challenges. The problems of copyright, image quality, and stability of thedigital file tend to reinforce some resistance to electronic forms of scholarly publication. Art history is invested in themonographic book as the prime vehicle for transmission of knowledge and academic advancement, and this bias is reinforced by tenure andpromotion standards that privilege books over other types of publication.

The spread of electronic publishing with print-on-demand options may appear as an inevitable development,but it is not obvious what immediate next steps will facilitate a productive transition. One factor to take into account is thattechnologically driven solutions are in advance of the slower pace of institutional and professional change. Many art historiansoperate within universities that set conservative credentialing standards. The challenge is to find a pathway that accommodatesinstitutional realities but invites innovation and opens new territory. An electronic publishing initiative must meet threebasic conditions: art history's rigorous and distinctive requirements relating to images; the discipline's historiographicaltradition of individual scholarship; and university standards of tenure and promotion, which value peer-reviewedpublications.

This part of the report identifies two areas where electronic publishing initiatives would offer art historyimportant benefits and respond to limitations of print publications: scholarly journals and collaborative, large-scaleprojects such as collection catalogues and catalogues raisonnés.