To Richard Frank, in response to his message about the patrons database:
The existence of an ongoing patrons database in electronic form
is most welcome news, and we owe you thanks. Your message invites a
public response as a means of generating discussion, so let me say my bit.
First, since several projected REED volumes are still in process,
presumably the database still has a lot more growing to do. You say the
database is "nearly completed", a description that I guess I don't
understand. I also think I don't understand your suggestion that you and
Elza Tiner will "explore the data" with an eye toward publishing the
"results". I would guess that the exploration of a partial database would
have to be partial, and any results also only partial or interim. You ask
about publication, but is it your sense that a publisher will be
interested in less than final results?
You ask what questions REED users might have that would be best
answered by an electronic search and subsequent statistical analysis. My
guess is that there's no way to answer such a question, as the needs of
users are infinitely varied, and change over time as their research
interests change.
You also suggest that the data in electronic form is more likely to
appeal to historians rather than English Drama scholars. I believe that's
an unfounded assumption, and I also find the distinction between the two
groups curiously literal and unrealistic.
My pleasure in learning of the existence of your database, and of
your good work on it, would be increased if you were to inform us of its
availability on-line. Is there some reason why you can't put it up on the
web for users to scan? If, as you say, scholars will be welcome to search
it in Toronto, why not make such searching possible for scholars who can't
get to Toronto?
_______________________________________________________________________
William Ingram, English Dept, Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1045
e-mail: [log in to unmask] fax (departmental): 313 763 3128
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