Hello Dave,
As you know, referencing locations on the World Wide Web is much
different from referencing print media. You should think of the WWW as
a living, breathing, morphing animal, and as such, you cannot
guarantee that the way it looks today is how it will look in a year,
or even a month. It is extremely frustrating for a reader to see a URL
in a book, try to access it, and discover that it no longer exists.
Although there are organizations attempting to archive the Web at
given time intervals, it is extremely challenging:
"The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) public nonprofit that was founded
to build an ‘Internet library,’ with the purpose of offering permanent
access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical
collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located
in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data
donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the
organization started to grow to build more well-rounded collections."
http://www.archive.org/about/about.php
As a writer, your goal should be to allow the user to access all the
content that exists in your work. By supplementing your hard-copy text
with URLs, you are essentially creating your own miniature web of
resources. However, unless you are able to keep track of and update
all of the links you include in the original release of your book,
there is always a risk of the user not being able to experience what
you had intended at the time of publishing.
Since you do not 'own' these URLs, you have little control over what
happens to them in the future. Some possibilities include:
1. The URL no longer exists
2. The URL has been moved to another location
3. The URL that you viewed and included in your book has been replaced
with potentially irrelevant and inappropriate material for your
viewership.
There are a few ways for you to mitigate the risk involved with
providing references to dynamic information within a static medium:
1. Create your own dynamic medium (ie. a website) where your reader
can go for additional resources relating to your publication(s). Now,
when the web changes, you can change with it by providing the updated
URL as a link on your website. You own the website (which is
referenced in your book), so any users looking for web content will
need to come here so that you can 'mold' their experiences to match
what you had envisioned orginally.
2. Contact the individuals/organizations that currently run the sites
that you would like to reference. Behind every website is human
activity (or inactivity), and by learning more about these people you
will get a better understanding of how reliable and stable this
information will be in the future. This will also give you a chance to
publicize your book; often a potential buyer of your book could
approach the subject directly from the web - how nice would it be to
let them know that there is a book that covers this topic further?
Since you are advertising a website, why not see if the website will
advertise for you? This will also allow for a mutual agreement between
you and the webmaster(s) whose URLs you are publishing. For all you
know, they may not want to have their URL published.
As far as your idea about stating "that Google or a comparable search
engine will be required" in your introductory paragraph, there are
pros and cons to taking this measure. If you have already determined
that your book is for the type of people who have access to and an
understanding of the Internet, then this is not even a necessary
statement to make. Aside from using email, a search engine is among
the most widely used tools on the web and it is safe to assume that
most people will be familiar with it. However, you may be shooting
yourself in the foot by stating this "requirement" - what happens if
your book is being considered for purchase by someone who absolutely
*hates* computers and the Internet? Embedding links in the text is
annoying enough for someone like this, but this type of requirement
could turn them off your book completely. You should remember that the
Internet should be viewed as a supplementary resource when publishing
print media (assuming that you are trying to reach a broad audience
base). The reader should be able to get significant value from simply
reading your book cover to cover, rather than being forced to follow
links and use search engines.
Hopefully this dialog has helped you understand the waters of
mixed-media publishing a little better and will guide you to the
correct decisions. If you have any trouble understanding the
informtion above please do post a clarification and I will respond
promptly :)
Cheers!
answerguru-ga |
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