Band 7 • 2005 • Teilband I	ISBN 3-86004-198-3
Geschichte und Neue Medien in Forschung, Archiven, Bibliotheken und Museen
Fachkommunikation

Toward a New 'Republic of Letters'
H-Net, H-Soz-u-Kult and the Future Perspective of Scholarly Networking among German Language Historians

Borgmann, Karsten

This paper will compare two ways of “connecting historians” and discuss their relative merits. The first model is that of the Michigan-based organization H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, a community of over 120 lists and 100,000 subscribers. [1] The second model is that of H-Soz-u-Kult (HSK) [2] , a German language member of the H-Net community that has grown in size over the past few years and is now experiencing certain difficulties that are in many ways comparable to those faced by H-Net in the first years of its existence.

The "Republic of Letters"

The common reference point for both the H-Net and HSK remains the rather farsighted goal of creating a virtual space that supports and enriches the communality of academic discourse through the use of new media technologies. One of the early H-Net pioneers, Richard Jensen, liked to use the term republic of letters in reference to this virtual space — a collegial group of scholars who combined subject expertise with new media technology in order to better communicate with their peers. Jensen also conceived of this place as friendly, and consciously sought to develop it outside of existing institutional hierarchies and disciplinary geographic boundaries. For Jensen and many others committed to building up the organization, the H-Net was not merely another academic service provider. The organization should seek to provide oversight and standards for scholarly discourse in an academic landscape confronted with increasing and sometimes overwhelming diversity. The project not only sought to appropriate new technologies for research and teaching, but also to transform the established boundaries of academic discourse, thereby increasing academic participation and advancing the standards of research and teaching in general. This principle has also guided the conduct and work of HSK in Germany since 1996.

Building the "republic"

In a rather brief span of time, the H-Net revolutionized electronic academic discourse in the United States. Within its first few years of existence, it succeeded in substantially lowering the barriers of entry for electronic online publishing. By integrating a whole generation of scholars, the organization made the academic listserv [3] mailing list a central and universally accepted method of scholarly exchange. In the ensuing years, it then fostered affiliations with many of the important professional societies within particular academic fields. And, finally and perhaps most importantly, the H-Net set the important example of a non-competitive and non-partisan environment, in which the exchange of scholarly ideas was never guided by motives of financial gain. In this regard, the H-Net introduced important standards and gave direction to the world of open e-mail-based discussion networks. H-Net Reviews, the H-Net Job-Guide and the Announcement Database still stand out as achievements that continue to survive the breakdown of so many other enthusiastic internet initiatives that blossomed before the year 2000.

Opposing trends

Nevertheless, the H-Net’s republic of letters remains an ideal. It should not mislead us in losing sight of some counterproductive trends that characterize the network today. Throughout the years, the H-Net has developed more and more from an entrepreneurial project to a mature organization that is concerned with providing institutional stability and professional services to a myriad of quasi-independent networks. A better metaphor to describe this state of condition may be that of a confederation of self-defining republics, by which I mean to imply that the focus of the organization has shifted from promoting the network as a whole to maintaining a network of networks. Instead of resembling the academic commons, the organization has instead reinforced the current trend towards increasing specialization. New networks have become more and more focused in their scope, making H-Net an entry point to a multitude of republics, but no longer an organization that seeks to foster communality among those diverse states.

Please do not misunderstand me, these comments are not meant as a fundamental criticism of the H-Net. Quite to the contrary, I do not think that plurality in this form is a deplorable condition. But let me address here three aspects that arose in my mind while preparing this talk on a republic of letters.

First, listserv technology, still at the heart of the H-Net, predetermines a particular mode of community. People do not subscribe to the H-Net but rather to a single list. Technology, in this regard, is limiting the sense of belonging to a larger academic network. While the technology supports the editing on a list level, it makes the coordinated exchange of messages among particular networks very difficult. H-Net users may choose among various lists but cannot opt for a single H-Net program. It is quite a challenge to imagine an edited H-Net journal to which all H-Net users would subscribe. This would create a common reference point within the daily life of scholars worldwide and also provide enormous publicity for the actual communication that goes on within the specialized networks.

Second, within this federation of networks, the final product — the actual content produced in the myriad lists — is difficult to coordinate and control. Compared to scholarly journals and other established forms of print media, the H-Net can hardly claim to publish along a recognized and comprehensible set of editorial guidelines. Rather, it only defines a very limited set of rules for the editors and has no central mechanism in place for controlling whether those guidelines are actually followed. There is a huge amount of working knowledge and experience among each team of list editors. However, apart from sporadic discussions on H-Net editor-internal mailing lists there exists little common understanding of, for example, the completeness of a conference announcement or the basic elements of a conference report. Interestingly, many lists have developed a similar spectrum of message categories and formats: Call for Papers (CFPs), Announcements, research queries, and book reviews. But new lists still begin without any predefined definitions and standards.

Third, while the H-Net has set an example in the scope of its cooperation with affiliated academic institutions and societies, the degree of actual involvement by these third parties remains limited. For example, although the H-Net offers the creation of a network website on the H-Net server to affiliated scholarly societies, it has refrained from creating policies that encourage the networkwide distribution of content. Such a step, in my opinion, would be an effective and easy way to involve more organizations in the process of electronic scholarly publishing. In such a scenario, the affiliation with H-Net would create a starting point in enabling academic institution to publish online on a regular basis with a set of recognized and standardized procedures. Moreover, such a guided and interdependent network would enable the H-Net and its affiliates to work together in placing their content online. Such a route of course implies that the H-net would need to expand beyond merely providing listserv services, and instead make use of its increasingly central position within the institutional landscape of academic life in the United States.

HSK: The Current Situation

Let me now characterize briefly the history and situation of HSK. Our network developed in a similar fashion to the early, more broadly focused lists within the H-Net, like H-Woman, H-Urban or H-Holocaust. We experienced what could be termed inclusive growth, integrating a broad spectrum of regional, temporal and thematic specializations among German language historians. But in contrast to the H-Net, the development of HSK was not accompanied by a comparable formation of specialized sub-networks for the various sub-disciplines covered on the list. From the start, HSK thus accumulated members and contents in a single forum, one whose topical depth, in the H-Net context, would have been dispersed over multiple networks. Over the years, this approach has meant that our editorial policies were predominantly aimed at reducing the number of daily postings. The editors have developed a basic standard of what contributions should look like in order to better manage the network as it grew in scope. This practice led to a much more explicit formulation of formal standards than in any other H-Net List. When compared to its larger brother — the H-Net —, HSK thus provides a model for creating compatibility, direction and setting standards for the list republic that is H-Net. Nevertheless, such standards also have their drawbacks. Compared to other lists, HSK is a very sober and clean forum, often lacking the topical richness, plurality and informal communality that many other H-Net lists maintain.

New Challenges: Direction and Diversity

Today, as a result of the partnership with Clio-online [4] , HSK enjoys a unique opportunity to combine both models: the diversity and richness of H-Net on one side; a set of tried and true editorial guidelines and procedures on the other. For HSK, the network of Clio-online partners presents a framework of cooperation. Indeed, one of the project’s core goals is to develop new forms of academic cooperation between its partners. Together with the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF) in Potsdam, for example, HSK is currently conceptualizing a joint-venture in e-publishing with a new team of editors in the area of contemporary history. The concept of this project draws directly on the H-Net experience and on the work of HSK in the last years. Let me finish by briefly explaining the basic outlines of this project as a model.

First, we are going to make use of some improvements in listserv technology that allow the creation of a completely database-driven scheme of distribution. Instead of multiplying e-mail addresses in various lists, the software can define sub-segments of subscriber rosters. This has the immediate advantage that the system knows, which messages have already been sent to a single subscriber. Members of the editorial teams in Berlin and Potsdam will have the opportunity to post as much content as they would like within their respective network segments without worrying that messages will be duplicated as cross-postings. This scheme allows for the integration of all contributions into a common forum (HSK) but also for expanding the quantity of messages within interested sub-groups of subscribers.

Secondly, the editorial team in Potsdam will start using the editorial principles already in place in Berlin. They will post announcements, conference reports, research queries, and reviews using the same guidelines and same editorial database. Ideally, this will result in a comprehensive and easily manageable database of scholarly content that can be merged in academic online calendars, conference pre-prints, and reviews presented in the Clio-online portal. New editors will work in the same content-management system as other HSK editors. Nevertheless, the cooperating teams of editors are encouraged to go beyond the rubrics and formats already established by HSK. Open text formats will be added to the system, allowing a fast, listserv style distribution of any kind of text to a limited segment of the entire network.

A final goal of the cooperation is to explore how an independent institution like the ZZF begins to perceive of its own role within the larger project and how we can then use that experience to enable more institutions to join the network with a common purpose — to find the common ground that allows a plethora of institutions to regard HSK as their network, joining us in our attempt to put more valuable scholarly content online. The idea is to have partners build up their own webservers in order to present their content — messages, short texts, articles and reviews — within a common framework, for example within HSK. They will be provided with tools to manipulate the presentation of their content in order to adapt it to their corporate identity.

Let me conclude by saying that these homegrown concepts should not be understood as an alternative to the H-Net model. They are meant to complement and support our common goal of a friendly and universal academic space, supportive of scholarly exchange beyond the plurality of academic specializations. In my opinion, H-Net still is the organization with the highest amount of global scholarly participation. It undertook the first giant leap in transforming an idealistic vision into an organizational form.

Karsten Borgmann arbeitet als Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter in dem DFG-geförderten Projekt Clio-online an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin sowie bei H-Soz-u-Kult .

[1] See, <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/>.

[2] See, <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/>.

[3] Listserv refers to the software package by the company L-Soft, which serves as the technological basis for H-net's mailing list distribution. See, <http://www.lsoft.com/>.

[4] See, <http://www.clio-online.de>.

Discussing what, connecting who?
Clues and hunches about the relationship between French historians and the on-line communities

Saunier, Pierre Yves

The time was ripe for alarm recently on the electronic list H-Français. [1] The association of the Clionautes, spearhead of the list, was preparing its annual meeting for 22 March 2003, and there seemed to be a lack of volunteers to take over and maintain the website, to moderate the list, and to scour the web and the press for information. Is the first generation of editors that created the list in 1996 [2] on the verge of overwork and weariness? Quite likely. Of course there was also a rhetoric of self-flagellation on this occasion. But the pattern should be quite familiar to the subscribers of electronic lists, where the change of guard between lists’ founders and a new generation of moderators and active contributors remains problematic. Last week, the moderators of Biblio.fr also showed signs of doubt after the cancellation of the conference the list was organizing, a cancellation that was due to the low number of participants. [3] H-Urban, my electronic Alma Mater, finds it difficult to imagine a life after Wendy Plotkin, the list’s incredibly active founder, who is beginning to feel the burden of ten years of commitment.

But more important to our current discussion are the specifics of H-Français. With more than a thousand subscribers and more than a half decade of life, H-Français is the only vast list connecting French historians, properly speaking. The conundrum: H-Français is devoted to the teaching of history and geography in secondary and high schools and provides a link between teachers who interact regarding pedagogical practices, professional concerns, historical questions, and electronic resources for the teaching of history and geography. A few academics belong to the list, but they do not seem to rank among its most active subscribers. In fact, French historians and online communities are worlds apart. My very presence here is a clue. If we trust the session organizers' perspicacity, they would undoubtedly have found someone more mainstream to talk about our subject — if such a person existed. Mentioning my characteristics sounds like a check-list of a spaceship bound for failure: I am not working in a University but in the French national research institution (CNRS); I am not even classified in its history department but am part of a hybrid multidisciplinary section specializing in urban studies; I am not a member of any French professional historical society; I do not work for any French historical journal; my current research does not deal with France and it's been a while since I have published an article in French or gone to a conference in France. This list gives you an idea of how peripheral I am to the French historical world, institutionally speaking.

To hopefully ease the reader’s present discomfort, I will organize my contribution within the familiar French 'three-steps' methodology. I will first describe the scholarly connections that do take place in France; then I shall discuss some general aspects of the presence of French historians on international lists; having mapped the situation, I will finally propose a hypothesis on the relationship between French historians and electronic lists. [4]

Electronic lists in France

The landscape of electronic connections between professional historians is in fact pretty barren. Before turning to electronic mailing lists, it must be said that there are some effective services that offer information on conferences or workshops: A few are specialized gateways such as the Menestrel website [5] for medieval history, and, of course, the ever-enduring, comprehensive and efficient Calenda monthly bulletin board, a by-product of Revues.org. [6] The latter is a successful example of mutual information, though the material brought together by the Calenda team is very basic, made up of themes, dates, programs and links for supplementary information. But this might well be the only sort of information that the community of French historians is willing to share. The examination of three historical electronic lists will be used here to develop this hypothesis:

The first, Menestrel, is a medieval history list set up in 2002 with the purpose of accelerating the dissemination of information that internet-savvy medieval historians were already disseminating through their website. Vingtcinquante, the second list to be considered, was launched in 2001 by a group of doctoral students who shared an interest in the political history of the years 1920-1950. Their express aim was to make information in the field available for young researchers. Finally, Histoireimmig was also created in 2002, initiated by the prolific Philippe Rygiel who maintains the Clio website at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris [7] , a social history site with a specific focus on the history of immigration. It is striking that none of these ventures was launched or supported by a professional association, nor by a senior and well established scholar. In geographical, institutional or corporative terms, they stand at the periphery of the discipline. I have selected those three lists because they are, as far as I know, the only three moderated and open mailing lists in the French historical profession. While others do exist [8] , only those three have adopted certain standards of electronic publishing such as moderating posts, open subscription [9] , and archiving posted messages. They are all relatively similar in size — about 200 subscribers — and in the infrequency of their postings — between 15 and 150 messages a month.

All three mailing lists are wholly devoted to circulating information. Tables of contents, meetings, special lectures, internet links, and conferences announcements make up most of their traffic. Some moderators suggest that even these are not that easy to obtain. Some types of information — for example, job announcements and PhD defense announcements —, are especially meager, especially on subjects and in fields where resources and opportunities are scarce and competition is fierce. None of the lists has yet attempted any long term editorial development, established regular book reviews, nor maintained discussion threads. [10] Menestrel is in fact the only list that features questions and answers, mostly about how to find a specific medieval manuscript or to identify a source. According to one moderator, the questions do find their answers, but the use of the list to develop queries of the sort came relatively late in its (young) history. And, even there, the exchange is mostly one way, from demanders (students, foreign scholars) to providers (French University professors), while on the other lists it tends to flow from moderators to subscribers. In all three cases, subscribers tend to be information consumers. The best characterization of these lists is thus as information lists, and queries to some of the list moderators suggests that this orientation is both the product of choice and constraint.

Indeed, some of the interviewed scholars have suggested that the big electronic lists such as those from the H-Net, are far too trivial, noisy and time-consuming. I will not linger on this point here, as I will return to it in the second part of this paper. Accordingly, they chose to promote a list standard in which every message was informational in nature — no more, no less. Some even developed a control mechanism to reduce the flow of information in order to maintain a low level of traffic — at the subscribers’ request. But constraint was also a strong inducement to take the road of information. Those list moderators stressed that their small membership would prohibit discussion or debate, notwithstanding that they would need to devote even more time and energy to the lists in such conditions. But the central factors, as all those queried agreed, can be clearly identified: The lack of a culture of discussion among French historians on one hand, and their professional and disciplinary mode of operation on the other. These were the crucial constraints explaining what mailing lists could and could not do.

French historians and international electronic lists

I will now consider three modes of involvement in electronic mailing lists: subscription, participation and moderation. [11] As far as subscribers are concerned, in 1999 there were 18 people with a personal address ending in '.fr' among the 1,300 H-Urban subscribers (22 of 2,037 as of 2003). Addresses ending in '.fr' make up 67 of H-Med’s current 390 subscribers, a list dedicated to Mediterranean studies, and 25 out of the 2,500 H-Museum subscribers. The closer a list’s content deals with French history, the higher the level of French subscriptions — not surprising in a country where national history is still the overwhelming field of research, teaching and publication. Nevertheless, only a minute fraction of French historians (and, it must be remembered, subscribers to the above mentioned lists are not all historians) seem to pay interest to electronic international mailing lists. [12] They participate even less in the life of those lists. Very rare are those who consider it worth posting information to their list, both as a basic sharing gesture and as a way to circulate information about French historical research. Things are even worse when it comes to discussion. Though I have kept quiet during the past few months in H-Urban discussions, it is hard to remember encountering another French subscriber in a discussion, though on rare occasions information on France was circulated by somebody else. The same thing is true on H-France, despite the obvious relevancy of the list’s subject. Even the recent and not very satisfactory exchange on the Iraq crisis did not generate much heat. Only a handful of French historians, most of them junior academics, participated in the discussion. In fact, French subscribers never ventured towards expressing scholarly ideas. It is quite revealing that most answers to questions posed on H-France have come from French archivists, not university-based academics.

Are there any French scholars actively involved in promoting such work? Cynthia Ghorra Gobin, current French book review editor and board member for H-Urban [13] , or Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux [14] , former H-Net Board member, have dedicated time to those commitments, while Denis Bocquet [15] , one of the founding members and current moderators of H-Med, and Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire [16] , a member of H-France Board, are contributing to new lists or new features of established lists. There might be more of them than what I have been able to dig out. But in any case I would be surprised to hear about any senior established French historian who would pay interest to an international list, as subscriber, contributor or editor. Clearly our sample is, once again, not in the core of the profession, though its members can have an established reputation in their field. Why did they get involved? How do their peers react? Their French colleagues, it must be said, tend to show a lack of interest or understanding when they try to explain what they do and why they do it. Yet what I have found the most striking in the discussions I had was that those French academics actively involved were inquiring minds, curious to learn and share with foreign scholars, and open to foreign historical research. All of them, indeed, have a transnational or international subject or specialty which fuelled their interest in the wider world. They are also characterized by peripheral geographical, disciplinary or institutional positions. They — we, for I should include myself — are people who do not fit, for various reasons, in the French historical profession. This does not mean we are rebels, outsiders or lone riders. Clearly, as far as I am concerned, I am in some sense embedded in the French historical profession, which includes people I like to exchange ideas with. But there is a widely shared set of scientific and professional values, behaviors and views that I wish to keep as far away as possible. In this sense, the participation in international online communities becomes a way to find a substitute community in which subjects can be discussed, and where one can speak and listen without the burden of certain established values, behaviors and views. Among those are precisely the lack of a culture of discussion, and specific professional and scientific modes of operation for the discipline and profession — the factors described above as hampering the development of French electronic lists.

Mutual incompatibility? French historians and the electronic list, some final remarks

I will begin by briefly discussing my own experiences as a subscriber, book review editor, book reviewer, and board member of H-Urban since March 1996. While it was quite easy to develop an active reviews desk on European Urban History between 1997 and 2000, it proved difficult to push French reviewers towards developing a critical reading of texts and to thus develop reviews that came to grips with the books reviewed. Only a small handful of reviewers thought it a good opportunity to write reviews that neither eulogised nor destroyed their subject matter — the styles most often seen in current review sections of French historical journals; assassination by silence being the most current way to review a book nobody agrees with. A very short extract from this experience can account for this reluctance to engage books. One of those H-Urban reviews I commissioned was re-published by a major French historical journal, as some of its editors had appreciated the way it was written and what it had to say. The editor of the book, and some contributors, all senior historians with an established standing, subsequently became quite vocal in complaining about the criticism they received and one even went on to suggest that reviews of this kind should be approved by the author of the book in question before being published. My point is not to establish whether the critics were fully justified or not, but to stress that the freedom international electronic lists provide is not welcomed by a part of the historical French profession. In such a context, the electronic list becomes technically subversive. This subversiveness in turn creates a mutual incompatibility rooted in structural aspects of the French community of historians.

Before getting to this point, we must nevertheless get rid of some ready-made explanations that could account for the weak interest in electronic lists by French historians. Very briefly, the lists — and the Internet in general — are often described as noisy and disguised promoters of liberal individualism; the English basis of international lists acts as a language barrier for many scholars; the technical factor — setting up and running your own listserv, access to a good internet connection — limits the development of nationally-based lists. These are „good false reasons“, produced with sincerity. But a train of remarks can ponder their accuracy. A high-speed modem is not necessary to download daily messages such as those posted to a correctly moderated list, while a decent computer has long been standard fare among academics. True, there are some technical gaps, such as people who print the daily messages of a list in order to read them, or who send huge messages with attached files. But isn't it more a sign of lack of interest for the medium than a real proof of technical stubbornness? As for language, many French historians speak and write English and most of us can read it. And as for the noise of the lists, it need be remarked that the boredom of many conference sessions is not usually qualified as noisy, that no one complains when the journals we subscribe to are full of articles we tend not to read. Trivialness or uselessness, when encountered in the traditional cogs of the professional machine, are just more tolerated. The last bullet point is individualism, deemed as technically fostered by discussion lists where everyone would try to call attention to oneself. Here again, it is clear that such a behavior is accepted in other cases, and also that the role of a list as a tool for the dissemination of information, knowledge and research, is just not taken seriously.

If you accept my arguments, then it seems that we are running into some cultural wall to explain the disdain and distance expressed towards electronic lists and their use as a space for discussion and debate. A list to share information and to discuss research materials, results and hypotheses is clearly not congruent with the scientific operation of French historians. From the University benches to the University chair, the French historian is not taught or induced to consider that debate — as the collective formulation and (in)validation of hypotheses, the expression of doubt, the tolerance of uncertainty, and the trial of error — are an important part of the trade. Workshops, conferences, PhD defenses and the pages of the French historical journals witness this pattern. This is not to say that this is worse or better than the cultures of discussion and expression that rule elsewhere, but it is clearly a state of mind that does not encourage the qualities that electronic lists can bring to the scholarly community. The very fact that lists' discussions are often tentative, sketchy, adventurous goes against the grain of everything considered dignified, 'serious' and, indeed, worthy of involvement.

There are several reasons why the professional French historical community is adamantly uncongenial to the types of communication that mailing lists produce. First, there are the difficulties posed in adapting mailing lists to the perceived hierarchies within the profession. While it is much too early to decide whether those difficulties are structural or momentous, there is at least a large gap between the two. Clearly, nobody has yet conceived of a list that could replicate the academic hierarchies developed in journals, university departments, research centers, clusters of sub-disciples, or even professional societies. Indeed, this might simply be impossible. Second, in a fragmented and client-based academic structure, information is power and the control of information a central feature of the power structure. The electronic list, as a means of disseminating information is rather foreign to this logic. Third, the way the profession co-opts its members does not favor risk taking. The expression of a nuance, the formulation of a hypothesis, the engagement in a contradictory debate requires courage when such a move could suffocate or compromise a career. And courage is a rare commodity when there are few job opportunities, and when access to those opportunities requires access to the upper reaches of the professional hierarchy. Last but not least, the list as such is an immaterial arena where identities, status and positions are at least temporarily suspended. There was once a cartoon in the New Yorker which had as its punch line: 'nobody knows you are a dog on the Internet'. And this is the crux of the matter: most French historians, from the most senior to those aspiring to become seniors, do not want to interact with dogs, and much less with underdogs. This is a world where you engage — through conversation, workshop discussion, book reviews, or controversy — with your peers: senior historians with other senior historians, juniors or students, juniors with other juniors or students, students with students. A doctoral student contradicting an established professor is, at worst, committing suicide and at least a mistake. What you are clearly has effects on what you can say. The mailing list offers a different way of organizing interaction: what you say impacts what you can be.

In conclusion, online communities build on potential members’ wishes to find information or to come together to converse on a subject. I think both forms of input — the what and the who from the title of this paper — are missing in the French historical profession. Indeed, is there any future for electronic lists in France or for French involvement in international electronic lists? The second part of the question clearly depends on how internationalized the academic labor market becomes. This would probably be the only way to create interest for information and discussion of subjects in an international context. In the meantime, the typical French subscriber of an H-Net list will remain a silent reader or a free rider. If I am correct in thinking that those French academics who made the move wanted to escape their national milieu, then it is very unlikely that they can think of using the cogs of this milieu to integrate some of its adverse values, behaviors and views back into French academia. But other views are possible as well. Electronic lists can just never take flight in France. Or they can be expanded and promoted by a new generation that will enter the academic career and use this and other electronic communication and publication as a means to displace an older generation. Or they can be appropriated by dominating strata who will bend them to the traditional ways and means of scientific and professional operation. Electronic lists could also develop through unexpected channels. For example, in fields where the historians work next to more list-friendly, historically oriented professions like archivists, museum curators, or librarians, for whom online communities are a logical continuation of established traditions in cooperative work. There are also some interesting projects of lists put forward by certain specialized or avant garde historical journals, who are considering mailing lists as a means of interaction with their readers and subscribers. A gradual acclimatization of the electronic list would most likely be the result of both those evolutions: First, a step-by-step development that would establish the mailing list as a medium among French historians, coupled with a corresponding change in the content and attitude of the existing lists. Though, there is also a last hypothesis: as online communities fade away as the rivers of pioneering energies dry up, or after they had been diverted towards teaching centers, online journals, gateways and other digital games, the French reluctance to embrace the medium could then be sold for a manifestation of a dazzling lucidity. Who would like to bet?

Pierre-Yves Saunier ist chargé de recherche am Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Lyon. Er ist Mitglied des wissenschaftlichen Beirats der H-Net Liste H-Urban.

[1] General information on H-Français, an affiliate of H-Net, can be found at <http://www.clionautes.org/spip>; <http://www.clionautes.org/index2.htm> and <http://www.fdn.fr/~fjarraud>.

[2] Dominique Pascaud provided an overview of the list and its work in his contribution to the report on 'les communautés délocalisées d'enseignants', available at <www.pner.org>.

[3] Biblio.fr, created in 1993 to organise discussion and circulate information in the field of documentation and information (including library and archival work), is by far the largest list in French, with 11,924 registered subscribers in March 2003. See <http://listes.cru.fr/wws/info/biblio.fr>.

[4] Let me stress that I would not be able to paint this picture without the help of several French colleagues, list members, list moderators and list subscribers, who have each made major contributions to this paper: Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, Denis Bocquet, Marin Dacos, Antoinette Fauve-Chaumoux, Christophe Le Dréau, Philippe Poirrier, Pierre Portet, Phlippe Rygiel and Alexis Spire gave time, information and opinions. Though my description of the field is surely not comprehensive, whatever sharpness it does include comes from their willingness to offer information and to engage in discussion. I am, of course, responsible for the interpretation of the data they provided me with. Even so, I have purposely overstated my hypothesis in order to spur discussion.

[5] See <http://www.ccr.jussieu.fr/urfist/mediev.htm>.

[6] Calenda is an electronic gateway created by Marin Dacos at the Université d'Avignon. It is also available on the web at <http://calenda.revues.org/>.

[7] See <http://barthes.ens.fr/clio>.

[8] Apart from non-moderated Yahoo lists, like the one on Russian history, several 'institutional' lists have developed, all with different sorts of success. A few examples: the list organised by the Centre de recherches et d'études en civilisation britannique (CRECIB) at the Université de Pau, for British studies; the list by the Association des historiens modernistes des universités françaises; and the various lists set up by the Institut National d'Etudes Démograhiques to integrate its research groups. But none of these lists is moderated nor open to non-members of the aforementioned institutions.

[9] Subscription to Histoireimmig is not an automated process. A request must be sent to the list’s founder to subscribe.

[10] In fact, those who have tried to launch such services quickly found their attempts thwarted. In one list, a project to establish a program of book reviews and PhD defense reviews was deemed too hot; the few reviews circulated were tightly edited and the end product polished enough to have come straight from the book’s dust jacket.

[11] My observations will deal mostly with those lists I know best, and each can be considered as likely to lure French historians into membership. H-France, H-Med and H-Urban form the basis of this sketch, though parallel information about Textel, H-demog and a few others corroborate my statements.

[12] And not very swiftly: the first French subscriber to join H-Med was not among the initial hundred.

[13] Cynthia Ghorra Gobin is a geographer at the CNRS. She has been an Advisory Board Member for H-Urban for several years. Her fields of study include the American City and the relation between urban planning and social changes.

[14] Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux is based at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and works on historical demography and history of the family. She is also editor at H-Demog, <http://www.h-net.org/~demog/>.

[15] Denis Bocquet is a specialist of town planning in the Mediterranean and of the history of technical networks in European capital cities and the Mediterranean.

[16] Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire is a professor of modern history at Nice University, France. His fields of research include freemasonry and travel literature. One of his research projects can be found at <http://www.egodoc.revues.org/corberon/>.

Connecting historians
The Case of Russia and Eastern Europe

Merten, Sabine

This contribution will focus on Russia and Russian history in order to investigate how historians in this region and field interact with one another – not through the “traditional” means of scholarly conferences, books and periodicals, but through the use of new media and the World Wide Web. In Russia, the Internet’s potential is increasingly being used to the same degree as in Western Europe. In recent years, the internet has established itself as a prime means of communication within the academic world of Russia, with the use of E-mail leading the way. But what about the other widely used possibilities offered on the World Wide Web? How are mailing-lists, newsgroups or discussion networks utilized among historians working in and on Russia? How is information about the latest scientific developments transferred and what advantages of the Internet are used by Russian historians?

In what follows, I would like to focus on two aspects of this transformation: first, how history is presented on the Russian-speaking Internet in general, and, second, what sort of actual practices of academic networking have developed among historians working in and on Russia? Within this second aspect, I will also include the networking that has taken place between Western European and Russian historians. Finally, the purpose of my contribution is also to provide a brief overview of the most widely used resources for Russian history: content-oriented historical websites, link lists, and discussions groups.

Websites and Web Content on Russian History

The increase seen in the number of websites devoted to Russian history over the past few years is astonishing. A great number of them are devoted to Russian history more generally and not a few focus mostly on making primary source material available. Moreover, good quality sites are being created both by enthusiastic private individuals and academic institutions. The following examples present an overview of important or prototypical sites within the field: [1]

• The so-called Radziwill chronicle of the fifteenth century, a website that includes texts and pictures. Published by Russian historians, it is part of a larger academic project on Russian history funded and based at the Academy of Sciences and the State University of Moscow. The site is well-organized and makes full versions of historical primary sources from the tenth until the nineteenth century, historical tables, articles on history, as well as an overview of historical organizations available. Therefore, this site is very suitable for academic research [2] . Other parts of the site focus on secondary literature (monographs, articles) or provide a forum for the discussion of Russian history. [3]
• Several sites focus on images, emblems and icons of Russian history. Though these are not the product of an academic institute, they are nevertheless quite useful for scholarly research. [4]

On the whole, the Russian internet provides a considerable number of well-prepared primary sources on Old Slavic, Early Modern and Contemporary Russian and Soviet history. Especially in the case of those websites created by academic institutions, the sources are of a high enough academic standard to allow for their use as proper references in footnotes, in-text citations, and the like. Sites not compiled by research institutes and academies tend to display a more „private” and perhaps idiosyncratic character – they are often produced by amateur historians. These offer a broader overview of Russian History and are intended for a wider public; they rarely set off or host detailed discussions on specific historical problems. I would call many of these sites “opinion sites”, which cannot be described as very serious. For example, a site entitled “Alternative History” offers alternative historical points of view, intend to be well away from historical mainstream. In this sense, Russians consider the World Wide Web a medium in which they can talk as freely as possible, arguing their often very “special” historical points of view to a potentially large audience. In such a context, primary texts are often posted without proper source citation and, if translated, without any indication of their translators and editors. If this information is missing, which is unfortunately very often the case, the sources become nearly useless for scholarly research purposes. Unfortunately, in most available indexes these tendentious sites are usually listed next to more serious and neutral sites, making it difficult as a layman to differentiate between the various types. One special sub-genre consists of the patriotic sites on Russian history. One can easily imagine what they look like and what point of view they want to give us. A particular caution must be uttered concerning Russian history websites that aim to promote and propagate certain tendentious views of history and therefore loosely connect statements of history with political opinions.

When turning to link lists on Russian history, we encounter many of the same problems that are found in individual sites. Although Slavic studies and Russian history sites can be important finding aids, they offer the visitor little guidance as to the content of the sites they contain, other than a short self-descripition. [5] The lists make no scholarly assessment of the sites so that users have to make their own assessment. Furthermore, once compiled, the sites are usually no longer supervised and many links cease to work after some time.

The year 2002, however, saw the launch of a federally funded German project that aims to systematically evaluate internet resources devoted to Russian history on the web. This project, entitled ViFaOst (Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Osteuropa / Virtual Library of Eastern Europe), went online in June 2003 and aims to establish a so-called subject gateway on Russian and Eastern European history. Each collected resource in the database is supplied with standard bibliographical references and linked to the relevant full-texts, research institutes, web sites, etc. -- in short, everything interesting and worthwhile to be found on the web about Eastern European history. Every link is carefully evaluated by experts and cataloged in a bibliographic format. Especially important is the ability to search by keywords, as the self-description of many of the sites in question is often insufficient or even misleading. [6]

Discussion groups as communication-platforms

Over the past few years, a plethora of mailing-lists on Russian-related topics have come into existence, ranging from Russian economy and law to sociology and other subjects. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most have not been launched from Russia, but from Western countries, especially in the United States and Germany. The biggest international lists are:

• H-Russia [7] (American discussion list on Russian history; part of the H-Net)
• H-Early-Slavic (American discussion list of Slavic history and culture before 1725) [8]

The subjects under discussion comprise the whole of Russian and Eastern European history; the editors are mostly faculty members based at various American universities. These mailing-lists are moderated, meaning that all contributions are screened for relevance before being posted. What is more, a comprehensive archive of all contributions is available, as well as reviews on recent publications in the field. Contributions are in English, though the lists are, of course, open to participants from Eastern Europe and anywhere.

Germany hosts one important list frequently used among Eastern researchers, the so-called JOE-List (Young Eastern Europe’s Experts). [9] While very useful, it also testifies a bit to the quite “pragmatic” attitude towards Slavic Studies in Germany: most of its content is organizational in form, such as professional and institutional announcements, invitations concerning exchange programs, and calls for papers from journals and conferences.

Apart from these academic lists there are a lot of lists of a more commercial character that differ greatly in their quality and efficiency. Recently, a couple of projects were developed that encourage communication between Russia and the West. These communication platforms are not exclusively academic, but also include common political, economic or juridical content. These are rather straightforward lists; their primary function is facilitating contact between East and West and, in most cases, they are launched and financed from the West. Examples for this are:

• Russian Legal Server, a United States-Russian joint-project [10]
• Johnson’s Russia List [11]

Some of the history websites mentioned above offer the possibility to exchange opinions about the content of the website. But given the rather modest dimensions of mailing on these sites, they could not be called proper mailing-lists.

Of course there are also a great number of mailing-lists created by Russians for an exclusively Russian audience. Most of these are not academic, but rather mundane in their subject matter. Topics under discussion are derived from everyday life and comprise social affairs, politics, etc.

Summary

In conclusion, I would like to make the following remarks:

Generally, web-communication in Russia among historians takes place less in discussion-groups or mailing-lists, but rather by way of electronic publications of primary sources and historiographical works. In contrast, internet-based discussion on Russian history in Western (mostly American) discussion forums that deal with Slavic Studies is very well developed and hence regularly used by Russian historians, too.

The web in Russia will undoubtedly develop into a medium for publication of longer academic texts. As the reader might be aware, funding for conventional publications in book format is scarce in Russia and a number of academic publishers are fighting for survival at the moment. Therefore, I think, the internet will increasingly become a considerable alternative for publication. And this will perhaps provide for a greater conformity of academic standards in Russian studies on the internet, for essays or book-length studies allow for a more profound contribution to an academic area than a short note in a mailing-list.

Dr. Sabine Merten war Projektkoordinatorin von VifaOst an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München.

[1] For a more complete overview, see, <http://www.vifaost.de>.

[2] See, <http://www.hronos.km.ru/proekty/mgu/index.html>, which also includes the 1924 Russian Constitution, <http://www.hronos.km.ru/dokum/192_dok/cnst1924.html>.

[3] See, <http://www.hronos.km.ru/proekty/russia/index.html>.

[4] See, for example, <http://heraldry.hobby.ru/index.html> for historical emblems of towns and regions, and the following sites for Soviet-era posters: <http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/html_pages/posters1.html> and <http://poster.genstab.ru/rus-civil.htm> and <http://www.poster.ru>.

[5] See, for example, <http://www.history.km.ru>, <http://www.barnaul.ru/>, and <http://www.history.ru/hist.htm> for Russian link lists; <http://www.websher.net/inx/link.html> and <http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no6_1_ses/contents.html> are non-Russian resources of the same type.

[6] See, <http://www.vifaost.de>.

[7] See, <http://www.h-net.org/~russia/>.

[8] See, <http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~ess/>.

[9] See, <http://www.joe-list.de/>.

[10] See, <http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/fplegal/main.html>. Furthermore, Friends and partners is a portal for mailing-lists on very different subjects, none of which are especially academic. The languages used are English and Russian.

[11] See, <http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/default.cfm>.

Museen und Internet: Präsentation – Kommunikation – Information

Blank, Ralf; Marra, Stefanie

Museen sind eine wichtige Schnittstelle zwischen wissenschaftlicher Forschung und öffentlicher Vermittlung. Es ist daher nicht verwunderlich, dass gerade diese Institutionen das Internet bereits frühzeitig als Präsentationsplattform, aber auch als Ausstellungsmedium nutzten. Die ersten Online-Angebote von Museen entstanden kurz nach der Etablierung des World Wide Web-Standards im Jahr 1994. Waren es zunächst einfache Seiten, die Kurzinformationen über das jeweilige Museum, kursorische Sammlungsangaben und eine Seite mit Adressen und Öffnungszeiten enthielten, entstanden ab 1995 komplexere Angebote, die mitunter ein breites Spektrum an weiterführenden Informationen bereit stellten. In Deutschland war es das Reiff Museum in Aachen, das sich im Juli 1994 aufgrund der Initiative des Kunsthistorikers Heinz Herbert Mann am Institut für Kunstgeschichte der RWTH Aachen als Vorreiter der zukunftsweisenden Entwicklung erwies. [1] Zu dieser Zeit stellte das Internet lediglich eine experimentelle Plattform und das Medium für einen schnellen Informationsaustausch dar. Im Oktober 1995 folgte dann der Webauftritt des ersten, auch realiter existierenden Museums: des Deutschen Historischen Museums (DHM) in Berlin, das auch in der Folgezeit als wichtiger Impulsgeber für die weitere Entwicklung anzusehen ist. [2] In den folgenden Jahren stieg die Zahl der deutschen Museen im Internet dann sprunghaft an – analog zu und in Wechselwirkung mit einer allgemeinen Verbreitung und öffentlichen Akzeptanz des Mediums.

Gegenwärtig kann die Anzahl der deutschen Museen im Internet nur geschätzt werden, da zahlreiche Museen bzw. die verantwortlichen Museumsträger ihre Webseiten nicht bei Suchmaschinen angemeldet oder in speziellen Webverzeichnissen eingetragen haben. Rund 500 Museen im deutschsprachigen Raum verfügen über eine eigene Domain oder pflegen ihre Webpräsenz eigenständig. [3] Ungefähr 500 weitere Museen betreiben einen Webauftritt auf einem städtischen Server. In Sammelverzeichnissen regionaler Museumsverbände sind von etwa 2000 Museen zumindest kursorische Informationen abrufbar. Neben den USA bildet Deutschland derzeit sicherlich die umfangreichste Online-"Museumslandschaft", was natürlich auch auf die Vielzahl von Museen in der Bundesrepublik zurückzuführen sein wird.

Online-Präsentationen: „virtuelle“ Museen oder digitale Informationsseiten?

Neben der Online-Präsenz von realen Museen existieren auch rein "virtuelle" Museen und Ausstellungen, die ausschließlich im Internet verortet sind. [4] Doch sind diese "digitalen" Museen tatsächlich Museen im Sinne der traditionellen Definition? Die eigentlichen Aufgaben eines Museums, nämlich Forschen, Sammeln, Präsentieren und Bewahren, können hier in der Regel nicht verifiziert werden. Besonders aber die Unsicherheit in Bezug auf die Nachhaltigkeit von Online-Museen und auf die langfristige Bewahrung der ausschließlich elektronisch verfügbaren Informationen widerspricht dem konventionellen Verständnis von einem Museum. [5] Diese Problematik bedarf zukünftig sicherlich noch einer genauen Bestimmung der Verortung von "digitalen" Sammlungen und Museen im "virtuellen" und "realen" Raum. Theoriebeladene Diskussionen und inhaltsschwere medienphilosophische Argumentationen dürften einer pragmatischen und praxisorientierten Lösung zweifellos nur ansatzweise dienen. Die Akzeptanz einer Gleichrangigkeit von "digitalen" und "realen" Sammlungen/Museen bestimmt letztendlich die Wertigkeit, mit der besonders im wissenschaftlichen und politischen Umfeld mit den elektronischen Ressourcen verfahren wird. Letzteres ist jedoch auch insofern wichtig, als eine Akzeptanz im politisch-administrativen Bereich notwendig ist, um zumindest mittelfristig nachhaltige Sicherungskonzepte umzusetzen, die in der Regel ein gewisses Finanzierungsvolumen voraussetzen.

Die Bedeutung von Online-Angeboten der Museen liegt vor allem in der Präsentation von Sammlungsbeständen und unterrichtsvorbereitenden Informationen. Hinzu kommen Aspekte, die für ein Museumsmarketing relevant sind, beispielsweise die Präsentation von Wechselausstellungen, die Kommunikation zwischen Museum und BesucherInnen sowie auch die Vermarktung eines Museums als Kultureinrichtung. Doch auch die Museumsorganisation und die Berufsverbände nutzen seit vielen Jahren das Internet als Informations- und Kommunikationsmittel. Die Online-Angebote des Deutschen Museumsbundes sowie von ICOM-Deutschland, dem weltweit mitgliederstärksten Nationalkomitee des International Council of Museums, enthalten zahlreiche Hinweise auf weiterführende Ressourcen. [6] Die Haupteinstiegsseite von ICOM verweist darüber hinaus auf die Nationalkomitees und Fachgruppen. [7] Das Institut für Museumskunde in Berlin stellt als fachwissenschaftliche Institution zusätzlich wichtige Informationen im Internet bereit. [8]

Bereits im August 1994 publizierte der britische Informatiker Jonathan Bowen, heute Professor für Computerwissenschaft an der South Bank University in London, an der Oxford University die erste Version der Virtual Library museum pages (VLmp). [9] Damit wurde erstmalig ein internationales Verzeichnis für das Museumswesen geschaffen. Noch heute handelt es sich um den weltweit umfangreichsten, nicht-kommerziellen Webkatalog von Online-Museen. [10] Die VLmp werden seit 1996 von ICOM als offizielles Verzeichnis geführt und weiterhin von Jonathan Bowen koordiniert. Das Hauptangebot befindet sich seit dieser Zeit auf dem bereits genannten Hauptserver von ICOM in Stockholm, mit "mirrors" in verschiedenen Ländern der Welt, so auch in Deutschland am Historischen Centrum Hagen. [11] Als "Ableger" der ICOM VLmp entstand Anfang 1999 die Virtual Library Museen [12] , die als Fachportal für den deutschsprachigen Raum neben thematisch ausgerichteten Museumsverzeichnissen vor allem fachwissenschaftliche Online-Ressourcen enthält. Dazu zählt vor allem das seit 1999 existierende eJournal „Museologie online“, in dem in unregelmäßiger Folge Beiträge und universitäre Facharbeiten zur theoretischen und angewandten Museologie sowie zur Museumspraxis veröffentlicht werden. [13]

Ein Beispiel für „virtuelle“ Sammlungen als kulturelle Leitprojekte

Für die Museen werden "digitale" Sammlungen zukünftig eine größere Bedeutung erlangen, nicht zuletzt auch aufgrund des "Kosten-Nutzen-Verhältnisses". Ein Beispiel für die Nutzung des Internet als Präsentationsort einer realen Sammlung im "virtuellen Raum" bietet das Angebot der "Karlsruher Türkenbeute", das seit Ende Mai 2003 einen Sammlungsbestand des Badischen Landesmuseums Karlsruhe präsentiert. [14] Das Internetprojekt des Badischen Landesmuseums, entstanden in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), präsentiert derzeit rund 150 von 300 ausgewählten Objekten aus den Sammlungen des Markgrafen Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden (1655-1707), die dieser und weitere Mitglieder des Hauses Baden als Kriegsbeute aus den Großen Türkenkriegen (1683-1692), als Geschenke, als Erwerbungen sowie als Erbstücke in zwei „Türkischen Kuriositätenkammern“ zusammengetragen haben. [15] In einem als „Präsentations-, Wissens- und Kommunikationsplattform“ deklarierten Bereich des Angebotes werden neben den ausgewählten Ausstellungstücken unter anderem auch weiterführende Informationen zum historischen und kulturellen Kontext der Exponate und des Sammlungszusammenhanges angeboten. Das Herzstück der Präsentation stellen jedoch ausgewählte Exponate dar, die als so genannte Spinning Objects für eine „interaktive Einbindung“ der NutzerInnen sorgen. An sich handelt es sich hierbei um keinen neuen Präsentationsansatz, wohl aber um eine technisch aufwändige und professionelle Weiterentwicklung von bereits bestehenden ähnlichen Interaktionen, die zumeist für prähistorische, archäologische und antike Sammlungsstücke Anwendung finden. [16]

H-Museum. Kommunikation und Information für Museums- und Kulturwissenschaftler

Seit den 1990er Jahren existieren für das allgemeine Museumswesen bzw. für bestimmte Teilaspekte der Museumsarbeit eine Anzahl von Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten im Internet. Von diesen Diskussionsforen sind die im Frühjahr 1991 an der University of New Mexico entstandene US-amerikanische „Museum-L“ oder - analog dazu für den deutschsprachigen Raum - die 1995 von Wolfgang Röhrig gegründete und am Deutschen Historischen Museum beheimatete „demuseum“ die bekanntesten. [17] Auffallenderweise fehlte hingegen eine international ausgerichtete und von einer Redaktion moderierte Fachliste mit wissenschaftlicher Prägung, deren Inhalte nicht durch Diskussionsbeiträge der SubskribentInnen dominiert wird. Die Motivation, ein neues museumswissenschaftlich ausgerichtetes Fachforum zu gründen, das die wissenschaftlichen Standards einhält und dessen Beiträge auch zitierfähig sind, resultierte nicht zuletzt auch aus dem Überfluss der zahlreichen fachfremden, thematisch sinnfreien, gelegentlich aufdringlich kommerziellen oder zum geringen Teil sogar persönlichkeitsverletzenden Diskussionsbeiträgen in einigen Diskussionsforen.

Seit Mitte des Jahres 2001 existiert mit H-Museum eine internationale Fachinformationsliste mit einem kulturwissenschaftlichen und museumsfachlichen Fokus. [18] Die Gründung der Mailingliste H-Museum erfolgte im Juni 2001 zunächst unter dem Akronym "MusProf" (Museum Professionals List). Fast auf den Tag genau ein Jahr nach ihrer Gründung wurde die Liste als H-Museum in das renommierte H-Net (Humanities and Social Sciences Online) an der Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing aufgenommen.

Der Redaktionssitz von H-Museum befindet sich am Historischen Centrum Hagen, die Tagesredaktion wird abwechselnd dort und an der Universität Dortmund erledigt. Als Kultur- und Museumsstandort besitzt die südwestfälische Großstadt eine lange Tradition. Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts spielte Hagen unter dem bekannten Kunst- und Kulturmäzen Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874-1921) eine bedeutsame Rolle innerhalb der deutschen und europäischen Museumsreformbewegung. [19] Die „Folkwang“-Idee von Osthaus fand ihre Verwirklichung in dem von ihm 1902 in Hagen gegründeten Folkwang-Museum (seit 1922 mit Sitz in Essen), weltweit das erste Museum für zeitgenössische Kunst, in dem 1909 gegründeten Deutschen Museum für Kunst in Handel und Gewerbe sowie im Folkwang-Verlag (1919). Aus dieser Reformbewegung entwickelte sich unter anderem der Jugendstil, dessen Ursprung in der englischen Arts & Crafts-Bewegung lag und der vor allem in Belgien und Frankreich weiterentwickelt wurde. Über den flämischen Architekten Henry van de Velde, der auf Initiative von Karl Ernst Osthaus ab 1900 mehr als zehn Jahre in Hagen tätig war, konnte sich dieser Kunst-, Kultur-, Objekt- und Lebensstil auch in Deutschland durchsetzen. Der im Jahr 1972 (sic!) von dem Architekturhistoriker Nic(olaus) Tummers rückblickend für diese Lebens- und Reformkultur geprägte Begriff „Hagener Impuls“ umfasst die vielfältigen kulturellen und intellektuellen Innovationen, die von Osthaus und van de Velde in Zusammenarbeit mit zahlreichen bedeutenden Bildenden KünstlerInnen (zum Beispiel Thorn Prikker, Milly Steger) und ArchitektInnen (zum Beispiel Peter Behrens, Johannes Ludovicus Mathieu Lauweriks, Richard Riemerschmid, Bruno Taut) von Hagen ausgingen. [20]

Osthaus' Museumsbewegung, die bis 1921 vom westfälischen Hagen aus die Welt beflügelte, spiegelt sich in digitaler Form sowie in der internationalen Ausrichtung und vielfältigen Inhalten von H-Museum wieder. Das Internet als gesellschaftliche Reformkraft für Kommunikation und Information setzte zahlreiche kulturelle Akzente, die bereits seit Jahren auch vom Historischen Centrum in Hagen ausgehen.

Die Zielgruppen von H-Museum

H-Museum wird von derzeit (Oktober 2005) mehr als 4.500 Personen aus über 90 Ländern weltweit abonniert. Etwa 40 Prozent der SubskribentInnen stammen aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum, 40 Prozent der AbonnentInnen aus den USA und 20 Prozent aus den europäischen Ländern sowie aus Asien, Afrika und anderen Teilen der Welt. Der überwiegende Teil der SubskribentInnen ist in Museen und Universitäten, etwa 15 Prozent in Archiven und Bibliotheken beschäftigt. Weitere 10 Prozent studieren oder absolvieren wissenschaftliche Volontariate in Museen, Archiven und weiteren Forschungseinrichtungen, etwa fünf Prozent kommen aus Bildungsorganisationen, Behörden, Ministerien und Stiftungen. Aus den von den Listenmitgliedern bei Interesse anlässlich ihrer Anmeldung zur Veröffentlichung autorisierten Lebensläufen mit Angaben zu Arbeits- und Forschungsschwerpunkten stellt die Redaktion in regelmäßigen zeitlichen Abständen eine Auswahl von jeweils 20 Mitgliederprofilen zusammen („Member Profiles“). Auf Anfrage vermittelt das Editorenteam auch den Kontakt der KollegInnen untereinander. Anhand zahlreicher Rückmeldungen haben sich dadurch zum Beispiel Museumsfachleute und WissenschaftlerInnen „gefunden“, die unabhängig voneinander auf verschiedenen Kontinenten oder in unterschiedlichen Ländern an fast identischen Projekten gearbeitet und sich nun in Kooperationen zur gemeinsamen Arbeit zusammengeschlossen haben. Anderen Rückmeldungen zufolge wurde eine vom jeweiligen SubskribentInnen verfasste Vita für die „Member Profiles“ auch gezielt dazu genutzt, die eigenen beruflichen Vorzüge für potentielle ArbeitgeberInnen gewinnbringend zu präsentieren. Solche Nebeneffekte der Fachliste dokumentieren recht deutlich den Nutzen elektronischer Kommunikation über politische und geografische Grenzen hinweg.

Allgemeine Listeninhalte und spezielle Serviceangebote

Was bietet H-Museum außer dem beschriebenen Grundkonsens und dem organisatorischen Aufbau in der Praxis? Das anfängliche Konzept sah zunächst eine reine Informationsliste vor, die sich im wesentlichen auf die Veröffentlichung von Tagungsankündigungen, Call for Papers, Stellenannoncen, Rezensionen sowie einem Current-Content-Dienst einschlägiger Fachzeitschriften beschränken sollte. Um das Profil der neuen Liste zu akzentuieren, initiierte das Editorenteam international ausgerichtete, wöchentliche Presseschauen mit Artikeln zu museums- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Themen („Weekly News Digests“). Diese News Digests werden jeweils wöchentlich in zwei Ausgaben an die SubskribentInnen von H-Museum per Mail versandt: Ein angloamerikanischer Digest umfasst online verfügbare US-amerikanische und britische Artikel und der deutschsprachige Digest beinhaltet Presseartikel aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz.

Die Liste behandelt primär museumsspezifische Themen. Allerdings sind Museen interdisziplinär ausgerichtete Institutionen, so dass auch unter anderem archäologische, historische, kultur- und kunstwissenschaftliche Informationen Eingang in die Liste finden. Weitere wichtige Bereiche sind Gedenkstätten und Aspekte der Erinnerungskultur. Beiträge über die Aktivitäten von Archiven und Bibliotheken werden ebenfalls veröffentlicht. Die Geschichte und Entwicklung von Museen sowie Forschungen im Fach Museologie stellen zusätzliche inhaltliche Schwerpunkte der Liste dar. Auch das Arbeitsfeld "Museen und Internet" gehört zum Spektrum von H-Museum. Darüber hinaus werden Ausstellungsbesprechungen und Rezensionen von Fachliteratur und Medien angeboten.

Zu besonderen Themen und aktuellen Anlässen bietet H-Museum einen "Current Focus" an. Neben dem bereits genannten mehrsprachigen Presse- und Medienspiegel enthalten diese Specials Einführungstexte sowie weiterführende Verweise zu thematischen Online-Ressourcen. Aufgegriffen werden vor allem kulturpolitisch relevante Themen, die in den Kultur- und Geisteswissenschaften selten oder nur unzureichend bearbeitet werden.

Anlässlich der Flutkatastrophe in Ostdeutschland und Südosteuropa hat H-Museum im Sommer 2002 einen umfangreichen "Current Focus" herausgegeben, der nicht nur bei den Listenmitgliedern auf große Resonanz stieß. [21] Anlässlich des 11. September 2002, dem Jahrestag der Terroranschläge auf das World Trade Center in New York, entstand ein Angebot zur Erinnerungs- und Gedenkkultur, das 2003 durch aktuelle Entwicklungen und Ressourcen fortgesetzt wurde. [22] Die Auswirkungen des Irak-Kriegs auf die Kulturgüter zwischen Euphrat und Tigris waren im März/April 2003 das Thema eines eigenen "Focus", der weltweit besonders umfangreich rezipiert wurde, was sich in den sehr hohen Zugriffszahlen und den vielfältigen Rückmeldungen an die Redaktion niederschlug. [23]

Die Fachinformationsliste H-Museum kooperiert unter anderem mit dem Deutschen Museumsbund, mit dem ICOM und dem Institut für Museumskunde der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin sowie mit H-Soz-u-Kult und dem damit verbundenen, von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) unterstützten Fachportal Clio-Online (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). Darüber hinaus besteht eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit zahlreichen weiteren Forschungseinrichtungen, Organisationen und Museen im internationalen Raum.

Ausblick

Die Bedeutung des Internets für das Museumswesen wird zukünftig von einer zunehmenden Professionalisierung bestimmt. Wie in anderen Fachgebieten auch, ist die Zeit des exorbitanten Wachstums vorüber, die in den Jahren 1999 bis 2001 bereits ihren Höhepunkt erreicht hatte. Doch schon vor dieser starken Wachstumsphase hatten sich Online-Angebote etabliert, die noch heute zu den wichtigsten museumsfachlichen Ressourcen zählen. Demgegenüber drängt sich der Eindruck auf, dass seit 2002 die zumeist privaten und kommerziellen Angebote in ihrer Entwicklung stagnieren, besonders so genannte Link- und Museumsverzeichnisse, die in bunter Vielfalt von in der Regel fachfremden Personen in das Internet gestellt wurden. In zunehmendem Maße bestimmen dagegen professionelle Online-Angebote von Museen und Institutionen die Fachinformationen und Inhalte. Institutionelle und interdisziplinäre Kooperationen werden zu einer Vernetzung von Ressourcen und Potentialen führen, die Qualität und Inhalt von Online-Angeboten deutlich steigern werden. Wissenschaftliche Informations- und Kommunikationsmedien wie H-Museum und andere Fachinformationslisten ermöglichen einen internationalen Austausch zwischen den einzelnen Fachdisziplinen, die im Museumsbereich vereint sind. Davon profitieren werden aber auch die MuseumsbesucherInnen, die ihren Ausstellungsbesuch vor- und nachbereiten sowie auch weiterführende Informationen erschließen können. Die damit verbundenen Nutzungsmöglichkeiten und das inhaltliche Potential für museumspädagogische Arbeit braucht hier nicht besonders herausgestellt werden.

Ralf Blank ist Mitarbeiter am Historischen Centrum Hagen.

Dr. Stephanie Marra ist Mitarbeiterin der Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Dortmund.

[1] Informationsseite „Reiff II Museum“ von PD Dr. Heinz Herbert Mann, Institut für Kunstgeschichte der RWTH Aachen, letztmalig aktualisiert am 23.1.1996/8.5.1998 <http://arch.rwth-aachen.de/Reiff2/museum.reiff2.html>. Es handelt sich um eines der so genannten „virtuellen“ Museen, changierend zwischen Kunst, Wissenschaft und experimentellen Konzepten, das in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Aachener Kunstverein "Mehrwert e.V.“ entstand.

[2] Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin <http://www.dhm.de>. Eine Bilanz der zu diesem Zeitpunkt mehr als einjährigen Internetpräsenz zog im Januar 1997: Röhrig, Wolfgang, Zwölf Monate Internet-Betrieb am Deutschen Historischen Museum, in: Museumsjournal 1 (1997), online unter <http://www.dhm.de/abteilungen/edv/musjour.htm>. Weiterführende Informationen über die EDV am DHM unter <http://www.dhm.de/abteilungen/edv/>.

[3] Diese und die nachfolgend genannten Zahlen folgen einer Erhebung von Rainer Göttlinger, WebMuseen <http://www.webmuseen.de> aus dem Jahr 2002, dem für die Übermittlung der Informationen gedankt wird. Mit eingerechnet wurden Museen in Deutschland, Österreich, der Schweiz und in Südtirol.

[4] Zur Begriffsdefinition vgl. die Diplomarbeit von Villinger, Martin, Zur Virtualisierung von Museen – Angebots- und Organisationsformen, in: Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System 1999, <http://www.ub.uni-konstanz.de/kops/volltexte/1999/309/pdf/309_1.pdf>.

[5] Vgl. hierzu Art. 2 der auf der 20. Generalversammlung von ICOM in Barcelona 2001 letztmalig verabschiedeten ICOM-Statuten, online verfügbar unter <http://icom.museum/statutes.html#2>.

[6] Deutscher Museumsbund, Berlin <http://www.museumsbund.de>; ICOM-Deutschland, Berlin <http://www.icom-deutschland.de>.

[7] ICOM, Paris <http://icom.museum/>.

[8] Institut für Museumskunde, Berlin <http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/ifm/>.

[9] Virtual Library museum pages (VLmp) <http://icom.museum/vlmp>, vgl. dazu auch Bowen, Jonathan, The Virtual Library museums pages. Whence and Wither? in: Bearman, David; Trant, Jennifer (Hgg.), Museums and the Web 97. Selected papers, Pittsburgh 1997, S. 9-25.

[10] Unter <http://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/museums/old-index.html> (zuletzt eingesehen: 30.7.2003) ist für InteressentInnen noch eine vom Oktober 1995 stammende „historische“ Version dieses Katalogs abrufbar.

[11] Seit Anfang 1999 unter <http://www.historisches-centrum.de/vlmp/>.

[12] Virtual Library Museen <http://www.vl-museen.de>.

[13] Museologie online <http://www.vl-museen.de/m-online/>.

[14] Virtuelles Museum „Karlsruher Türkenbeute“ <http://www.tuerkenbeute.de>.

[15] Im Jahr 1877 vereinte Großherzog Friedrich von Baden beide Bestände, die zuvor in den beiden Residenzen Rastatt und Durlach verortet waren, im neu erbauten Sammlungsgebäude in Karlsruhe, dem heutigen Naturkundemuseum am Friedrichsplatz. 1920 fanden sie dann ihren Platz im Badischen Landesmuseum.

[16] Als weitere Beispiele können die „Drehobjekte“ aus den Sammlungsbeständen des Römischen Museums Augsburg <http://www.augsburg.de/Seiten/augsburg_d/kultur/museen_n/roem_museum/index_extern.shtml> oder aus der Präsentation der Dauerausstellung des Museums Schloss Hohentübingen <http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/museum-schloss/> dienen.

[17] Eine Auflistung bietet ICOM Paris in der Rubrik „Discussion Lists, Distribution Lists, Forums“ <http://icom.museum/mus_dist_list.html>.

[18] H-Museum. H-Net Network for Museums and Museum Studies <http://www.h-museum.net>.

[19] Vgl. dazu u.a. Stamm, Rainer, 'Die Brücke zum Menschen'. Lebensreform und Reformkultur als Teil des Folkwang-Impulses in Hagen, in: Buchholz, Kai (Hg.), Die Lebensreform. Entwürfe zur Neugestaltung von Leben und Kunst um 1900 (1), Darmstadt 2001, S. 493-498, sowie Fehr, Michael, Ein Laboratorium, in dem die Gegenstände einfach vorgeführt werden. Zur Kontinuität einer Museumsidee in Hagen, in: Schulte, Birgit (Hg.), Henry van de Velde in Hagen, Hagen o. J. [1992], S. 106-113.

[20] Tummers, Nic(olaus), Der Hagener Impuls. Das Werk von J. L. M. Lauweriks und sein Einfluss auf Architektur und Formgebung um 1910 (Hagener Beiträge zur Geschichte und Landeskunde / Große Reihe 15), Hagen 1972.

[21] Floods in Europe. Damage to museums, history places, archives and libraries <http://www.h-net.org/~museum/flood.html>.

[22] September 11. Memory - Remembrance – Museum <http://www.h-net.org/~museum/september11.html>.

[23] Iraq - The cradle of civilization at risk. Cultural heritage and historical monuments <http://www.h-net.org/~museum/iraq.html>.

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