About This Issue

by Robert Gilman

IN CONTEXT #44, Summer 1996, © 1996 by Context Institute


Welcome to IN CONTEXT #44, our first purely on-line issue. The new format opens up fascinating opportunities and, indeed, has changed our basic understand of what it means to "publish." I'd like to share this shift with you so you can have a better sense of what to expect.

To understand our shift of paradigm, bear with me while I describe two different approaches to education:

  • The curriculum-based approach, in which an expert group decides what the students should learn and in what order they should learn it.

  • The library-based approach, in which the learner decides which learning resources to tap and in which order.
To some extent they each incorporate the other, since curriculum-based schools usually have libraries, and you could say that the books in a library are like mini-curricula. Nevertheless, their priorities are different. I feel both approaches have their place, but once you have learned how to learn, the library approach tends to be a much more efficient way to learn.

How does this apply to publishing? I'm chagrined to admit that it wasn't until late 1995 that I "got" that a printed periodical is the direct analogue of a curriculum (the editorial group decides what the readers should see and in what sequence) while a web site is the analogue of a library.

Yet a web site can also be much more, for it can be interactive in way that most libraries and their contents aren't.

Thus, during the summer of 1996 (July, August, September), this "issue" will be more a process than a thing. What you will find on-line now is its beginning with only a start on its contents rather than a completed issue.

This start includes:
I invite you to join in this process by sending me:
  • comments on what is already in the issue
  • articles and suggestions for articles
  • reviews and suggestions for reviews of books, magazines, websites, videos, groups, etc.

I have to give you the editor's caveat: we will, as you might expect, use only a portion of the material and suggestions that are sent to us. But don't let that discourage you. Everything that is sent influences us and the evolution of this site.

So, please enjoy the evolving issue, contribute to it if you feel so moved, and help us develop this site into a world-class contribution toward a humane and sustainable future.


All contents copyright (c) 1996 by Context Institute

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Last Updated 29 June 2000.

URL: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC44/About44.htm

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