Its Bibliography Lives in Cyberspace

The NY Times has a neat little Story on web based bibliographies.
Publishing companines and authors are finding the web a nice place for bibliographies to live, leaving them out of books all together. The advantage, the publishers say, is a smaller, cheaper, more accessible book.

The NY Times has a neat little Story on web based bibliographies.
Publishing companines and authors are finding the web a nice place for bibliographies to live, leaving them out of books all together. The advantage, the publishers say, is a smaller, cheaper, more accessible book.
Recently the publisher asked one of its authors, Stephen G. Brush, to shorten a newly revised 500-page textbook, \”Physics: The Human Adventure.\” Instead of rewriting and trimming the text, Mr. Brush, a professor of science history at the University of Maryland, compromised with the publisher by agreeing to post his 100-page bibliography online.


\”It remains to be seen whether this will work,\” he said. \”It hasn\’t even been agreed whether the author maintains the site or the publisher does.\” He, too, regards the shift as a baby step toward something bigger. \”What I\’m worried about is the pressure to put a book just entirely online,\” he said.

The question of who maintains the sites leads to even more questions. If it\’s the author\’s duty, what happens in the case of illness or death? If it\’s the publisher\’s job, what if the publisher goes under?