Storing Text O’Donnell and the Author
“The author is already an endangered species.” (O’Donnell) today’s authors are reinventing themselves No longer is the writing word flat; it is exploding as glorious multidimensional where all our senses become engaged with the work.
“There is scarcely a page I have published in a decade and a half of scholarly writing that I would not now change if I could, but I cannot.”(O’Donnell) Yes, he can if he put his mind to it. There is always the option of revisions, new editions. To go to one’s grave without ‘fixing’ his discourse would be an injustice. There should be author responsibility to their audience to explain one’s ‘mental growth’ especially where technology makes it possible to link new with old publications online. We as students in an online course are an example of this. We have the tools to go back to previous postings and modify our thoughts as we go deeper into the materials.
O’Donnell, J. J. (n. d.) The Virtual Library: An idea whose time has passed. University of Pennsylvania. http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html
O’Donnell, J.J. Avatars of the word: From papyrus to cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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It’s great that you have pointed this out as we have a fantastic example of this in our own SocialBook, Writing Space.
Bolter has taken the time in the Preface to explain the changes since his last version and to detail why he is making an effort in this version to “respond creatively to the criticism of the first edition.”
This is fitting and does no disservice to the text or the author. He has chosen to extend the conversation, and I would be curious to see if he ever publishes a Third Edition!