Journals do not at present have the capability
to launch a major initiative in electronic publication. Surviving
on skeletal budgets, they lack the financial resources to expand
their operations and the in-house expertise to undertake the
dynamic digital extensions envisioned here. To move forward,
journals would require start-up funds to work through the design,
editorial and preservation questions, establish a sustainable
business plan, and roll out the initiative: in concrete terms, two
journals, two grants, two duplicate sets of problem solvers.
Art history might learn from the collaborative
approach developed in other fields. The pioneer was
Project MUSE,
which provides current online editions of more than 300 journals.
The aggregative approach was successfully pursued by the
American
Historical Association and the
Organization of American Historians,
which formed the
History Cooperative in 2000 and joined with two
scholarly publishers to disseminate a group of history journals
electronically. In 2005 the
American Anthropological Association
launched
AnthroSource, an online portal for a variety of full-text
resources, including numerous scholarly journals in anthropology.
Recognizing that a bundle of online publications is more valuable
than a stand-alone one in e-publishing and that efficiencies can be
achieved through collaboration, the appropriate approach for art
and architectural history might be a partnership to create a shared
online portal for scholarly journals and other text and image
resources.
The founding partners could be the two major
scholarly societies, the
College Art Association and the
Society of
Architectural Historians. The portal would initially provide access
to their full range of publications: 1) the scholarly journals,
Art
Bulletin and
JSAH as well as CAA’s other publications,
Art Journal
and
caa.reviews; 2) the abstracts of the society’s annual
conferences; and 3) the society’s newsletters. (SAH also publishes
a major book series,
The Buildings of the United States, which
optimally would be part of this program, but it has contractual
obligations elsewhere.) Over time, the venture might encompass
third-party publications in art and architectural history, such as
American Journal of Archaeology (which publishes its print journal
simultaneously in online format),
Artforum,
Burlington Magazine,
Master Drawings,
October, and
Print Quarterly, none of which are
available online. Perhaps museums would wish to participate by
sharing their bulletins.
ARTstor might play a critical role in this
venture: it is the major provider of digital images; it is poised
to become a rights clearinghouse; and it has technical expertise in
image display which could be extended to develop a proficient
text-image viewer. The consortium partners would seek a nonprofit
publisher to provide production and electronic hosting services,
and the bundle of publications would be available by subscription.
As a collection, the publications would gain more attention and
reach a wider audience than each one would struggling for
recognition on its own.
To summarize, the complexity of the task
exceeds the ability and resources of the individual journals and
scholarly societies. A collaborative approach would create
efficiencies, leverage strengths, and expand rewards not only to
art and architectural history, but to allied fields with an
interest in the visual world.
