III
Despite the easy analogy of electrons and water, and despite anecdotal lore about obsolescent electronic texts, which die if they happen to survive the only machines that can read them,[30] the main problem with electronic text is not the problem of durability. For there are two different routes to durability: the durability of the particular inscription, or the replicability of the inscribed text. Blackstone almost encounters this distinction when he remarks that "the deed must be written, or I presume printed." Printing, being a technology that can readily replicate a text, can give it durability of a second kind, beyond the durability of any particular inscription. After all, the boasts of Horace, Ovid, and Shakespeare were fulfilled not because their holograph manuscripts "remained"—they did not—but because they were copied, first in manuscript and eventually by print, which greatly multiplied the number of copies and so hedged against the loss of any copy. Important early English manuscript documents were, as we say now, "backed up"—that is, copied onto
multiple parchments and deposited in multiple archives.
[31] Durability can be copy-ability. Of course, copies may vary in accuracy, making textual criticism both possible and necessary. Electronic text makes copying extraordinarily easy and potentially of much greater accuracy than any manual or print process. Despite its wimpy, insubstantial appearance, electronic text passes the first of Blackstone's tests. Even, or perhaps especially, in its electronic form,
littera scripta manet. Replicating like an electronic virus, the stuff is actually very hard to expunge, as many a bureaucrat or newsgroup participant has learned with regret.
The main problem with electronic text has to do with the second of Blackstone's requisites: that is, the security of the letter—its security against tampering. Not that letters written or printed on paper or parchment cannot be tampered with or forged: they are not always what they represent themselves to be. Nonetheless, such forgeries and alterations often show: under more or less ordinary scrutiny they may be seen for what they are. Albert S. Osborn (1858-1956), a forensic expert who was celebrated for his skill in the detection of document tampering, once described the process of detection in terms that recall Blackstone's reliance for security on the fragility of paper and parchment, and that also amount to practical advice to l'homme moyen sensuel, the ordinary person possessed of ordinary senses, and ordinary common sense:
Alteration and tampering would be made much more difficult if all business forms that pass from hand to hand should be printed on dry, very smooth and perfectly white calendered paper, not of the highest quality, with an ample field of pure white paper surface above and below the amount line.
Calendered paper, like ordinary foolscap, is made smooth by pressure as it runs between heavy rolls. This operation compresses and smooths the sheet and the slightest disturbance of the surface of any kind is easily seen. The application of water, or any fluid, swells the paper and destroys the uniformity of the surface and is easily discovered.
Abrasion erasures also are very apparent on this paper and it is impossible to erase even pencil writing from paper of this kind without destroying the sheen or reflective quality of the paper when the erasure is made. . . . an erasure of this kind is seen at once by holding the paper so that the surface reflects light to the eye. The disturbed portion will not reflect the same as undisturbed portions. The banker or business man should select the paper upon which checks and drafts are to be printed and not meekly accept whatever paper and design is [sic] offered to him.[32]
Such was the world of writing on paper—a world not free of suspicions, but a world nonetheless in which you might expect to find your suspicions confirmed or disconfirmed: simply look and see.[33] The new world of writing with electrons prompts a stronger misgiving: the fear that one can never see for oneself whether the written word that persistently remains (assuming that it does) is the word it was supposed to be, or is, rather, an invisible imposture.
Several years ago David Bearman, a consultant who had held administrative positions in the Office of Information Resource Management at The Smithsonian Institution, prepared a brief introduction to such problems, titled "Archiving and Authenticity." Published online in 1995 as part of a symposium, it reappeared, revised, the following year as part of a paper document issued by the Getty Art History Information Program, a collection of articles titled Research Agenda for Networked Cultural Heritage. The online edition was withdrawn in 1999, but the paper edition fortunately survives. Bearman's comments are at least as pertinent now as they were in 1995:
The proliferation of electronic information and communication systems has created a crisis of accountability and evidence. As more and more of the records of our society are available in electronic form, users are asking how they can be sure electronic records created in the past will be available in the future and how they can be sure those received today are trustworthy. The issue is critical for all aspects of humanistic studies because these scholarly disciplines depend on the study of original texts, images, and multimedia sources. To even imagine the humanities, it is essential to have correct attribution, certainty of authenticity, and the ability to view sources many decades or centuries after they are created.[34]
Bearman's logic is consistent with the "Statement on the Significance of Primary Records," published by the Modern Language Association of America in 1995, which argues the need to preserve for "future study . . . texts that appeared in the past in handwritten or printed form on paper or parchment." Such material embodiments provide essential information about the history of the text in question, including the history of its consumption as well as of its production. "If we approach the electronic future with these thoughts in mind," the report urges, "we will be more rigorous in our demands of new forms of textual presentation and more vigilant in our protection of the artifacts embodying the old forms. Both these actions are necessary to ensure the continuation of productive reading, teaching, and scholarship."[35]
