Feb 15 2008
Why PDQ?
If weblogs are producing material that’s getting cited in peer-reviewed literature then why is PDQ necessary?
Weblogs are transitory and may disappear at short notice. The same can be said of print publications, it can be difficult to secure a copy of a publication if its gone out of print -especially if the print run was only a couple of hundred copies. Weblogs can also be edited which means that two people citing the same URL might not be citing the same text. PDQ aims to provide a canonical version of the article in a citation-friendly format. It also aims to preserve included entries for a long period of time.
The PDF version will be released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence. This means it can be stored and copied anywhere. If you want to store an archive of PDQ on your site, you can. The print version will be identical and pose the same curation problems as any traditionally published journal. Additionally we intend to lodge a XHTML or TEI version of PDQ with an OA repository. We have a specific target in mind, but this repository is not yet active.
A compilation will give a more attractive citation method for editors who are not yet at ease with internet citations.
Name, I. 2008. ‘A brief note about geese.’ PDQ: The Past Discussed Quarterly 1.1. 7-8
To make that kind of citation feasible we would benefit from an ISSN, and we intend to apply for one when the first edition is complete.
Finally, if the access to publication and speed of publication can be sustained then we should be able to bring a variety of noteworthy posts to the attention of academics which the traditional methods of publication would struggle to handle.
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[...] Past Discussed Quarterly is here and some more rationale here: Weblogs are transitory and may disappear at short notice. The same can be said of print [...]