1991:2 - Universitetet i Bergen

two decades. It was not until the mival of wordpmcessing in the early
1980's that computing became rnilch mote widespread. Wordprocessing
is a good way of getting peoplc interested in computing, but it is not
specific to the humanities and it is not appropriate to discuss it much
further here.
A similar point can also be made about electronic rnaif. It facilitates
the reservch process in that it enables rapid correspondence, or the
circulation of information to groups of pcopIe, as well as collaborative
writing. Bulletin boards and electronic discussion groups have flourishcd
recently ad it Is not diificult to spend al1 day reading thern. The buIletin
board approach where the user has to Iog on to it ta look for infomation
is better for information which wiEl nor change for some time. but not
so good for quick quesrions and answers. It requires the information
to be well-organized, as well as an casy way of getting printoul or
maiiing information to recipient, and frequent updating. The discussion
groups approach such as BITNET 'lists'. ar digesrs such as HUMANIST,
ANSAX-L, IOUDAIOS, PHILOS-L etc, which use electronic mai1 LO
distribute to al1 rnembers of Uie group, are bctter for quick questions,
the rapid dissemination of information, and discussion of itcms.
Wordprocessing and electronic mil, the information technology ap-
plicarians sharcd by all disclplines. facilitate things which are mcillary
to scholarship. Here I wanl to concentsale on the use of informaiion
technology as a tml in the humanities both for recearch and, ta a
lesser extent. in teaching. This irnposes an intellectual rigour, which
can be alien to the humanities scholar's way of working. However ir
forces thc schofar to think out more clearly the objectivcs of the
research and how to achievc hose objec~ives. It aIso forcos the scholar
to make decisions which in more traditional ways of warking would
be put off to much nearer the end of the project. If they are the right
decisions, the project will proceed reasonably wcll. If thcy are ~he
wmng ones, it can take a long drne to put them right.
3. TEXT-BASED APPLICATIONS
In the area of text-based subjects, miditionai applications were based
on concordances and text retrievai. In this case the basic source material
is the text itself and fewer decisions arc requircd on what to put into
the computer. Decisions may need to be made on choosing an cdition,
sampling the text and encoding the text, but the basic rnatcrial is fairly
clear at the start. The method of storing the text initially is also fairly
clcar. It musL be input as a sequential text file.
Concordances and text relrieval applieations can be used to advantage
for stylistic analyscs, critical edi tions, and lexical studies. but they look