GENERAL
CAUTION
by
Robert Schweik
© 1998
- ABOUT HARDY E-TEXTS, PICTURES, AND
MAPS
-
- Because many Web pages provide
links to Hardy e-texts made available by "Project
Gutenberg," "Bibliomania," "Poets'
Corner," "The Poetry Archives," "The
Oxford Text Archive," and by other similar sources,
a general caution about the use of such e-texts may be
made here. "Project Gutenberg" texts are among
those most frequently linked to Hardy-related web sites.
The names and e-mail addresses of transcribers,
preparers, and proofreaders of Project Gutenberg e-texts
are usually supplied; not always provided, however, are
bibliographic identifications of the printed texts upon
which the transcriptions are based, and these are often
editions not suitable for scholarly citation. In the case
of "Poets' Corner" texts, a list of print
anthologies used is provided, but the specific print
sources for particular e-texts are not spelled out. For
Hardy texts provided by "The Poetry Archives"
and "Bibliomania," the print or e-text sources
are completely unidentified. Even with an e-text
collection like "The Oxford Text Archive,"
where print sources may be indentified, texts vary
greatly in accuracy and in the formats in which they have
been encoded. For a helpful discussion of criteria for
evaluation of e-texts, see "Plain and Encoded
Electronic Texts: a Taxonomy and Guidelines for
Evaluation" (http://www.ceth.rutgers.edu/IntroductoryMaterial/E-TEXTS.htm#auth) by the the Princeton/Rutgers Center for
Electronic Texts in Humanities. At present, scholars
using existing e-texts available on the WWW or other
sources on the Internet will almost always find it
necessary to compare any citations they make from such
texts against an authoritative print edition.
-
- Of concern, too, is that e-texts or
images may be reproduced on the Internet in violation of
copyright, or with legal permission but with possible
unstated copyright restrictions. For a useful survey of
the issues involved, see James Fieser's excellent summary
(http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/pubdomai.htm). The "Oxford Text Archives"
provides information about the copyright status of the
texts it offers, but other collections usually supply no
such information, or make only some general claim that
the texts and images they reproduce are out of
copyright--often without identifying what specifically
was reproduced. Obviously, before using such materials,
it is important to ascertain their copyright status.
Finally, with respect to the
reproduction on the Internet of photographs, maps, and other
images related to Hardy's life and work, not only is it important
to ascertain their copyright status but, also, to be wary of how
they are identified. It is not uncommon to find images on the Web
whose captions are simply erroneous: a picture of the Sheldonian
Theatre has been identified as the Bodleian Library; a Tolpuddle
scene has been linked with Hardy's Talbothays; and a photo of a
building not known to have influenced Hardy's Tess has
been labeled "Tess's Cottage." Even the well-known map
of the whole of Hardy's Wessex has been mistakenly labeled
"Outer Wessex." But although images are sometimes
provided on Web sites with erroneous captions, a far more common
problem is that although there may be some possible connection
between a picture and an element in Hardy's writings, the image
will be labeled in such a simplistic way--"Lucetta's
House" or "Henchard's Seed Shop"--as to be
potentially misleading. Ideally, pictures will be identified by
their real subject--e.g., "Barclays Bank, South Street,
Dorchester"--and preferrably accompanied by the date of the
picture and the name of the artist or photographer. Further
indications of the relationship of the subject of a picture to a
fictional element in Hardy's writings--for example, of the
picture of a Dorset tithe barn to Hardy's description of the
great barn in Far from the Madding Crowd--will be most
helpfully accurate if made with appropriate qualifications and
reservations supported by quotations and other relevant
documentation.
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