It may not be appropriate for me to respond to this as a nonacademic lurker,
but I may have an insight to contribute nevertheless.
>From conversations we have had in connection with the early planning for ORB:
The Online Resource Book for Medieval Studies, my sense is that the issue is
less one of paper vs electronic publication than it is a question of whether
the material has been refereed.
We are trying to address this issue with the ORB project by setting up an
editorial advisory board under the general editorship of Frederick Cheyette
at Amherst. We expect that the editorial advisory board can then send
contributions to appropriate reviewers -- exactly as in the case of a "paper"
publication. We are hopeful that this review process will strengthen the
value of material published through ORB both for potential users and for
hiring, T&P, etc.
For those who may wonder about the nature of the ORB project: it is an
outgrowth of a thread on MEDIEV-L last spring; the objective is to create a
set of essays which can serve as a supplement or possibly even a substitute
for an introductory text on medieval studies, together with pointers to other
online resources. Our "publisher" is Lynn Nelson at the University of Kansas,
who has arranged for the appropriate server space; and Frederick Cheyette at
Amherst, as previously mentioned, is editor-in-chief. We are also exploring
copyright issues as well as document "watermarking" and other techniques to
protect the integrity of the electronically-published word. I am sending a
copy of this posting to Professor Cheyette so that appropriate language for
citation of ORB essays can also be one of the items for consideration in
initial project planning.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lblanchard@aol.com