The authority (or "authorliness") of texts has been a central tenet of academic scholarship for many centuries. Authority includes the following principles:

• It is very important to identify accurately the author of each text.
• Correct attribution is a sign of good scholarship.

• Text should be preserved in the author's original form as published.
• Readers do not modify the original text.
• Marginal notes and commentary must be held distinct from the original text.

While many electronic texts honor these principles, there also exist a number of challenges:

• Electronic texts may not have a definitive edition.
• Electronic texts often have confused authorship.
• In hypertexts, the reader and author share control of the text structure

George Landow, a leading hypertext theorist, summarizes the importance of these changes as follows:

Electronic linking reconfigures our experience of both author and authorial property, and this reconception of these ideas promises to affect our conceptions of both the authors (and authority) of text we study and of ourselves as authors. (cite)

Responding to the challenge

Will scholars embrace new forms such as hypertext even when their structure threatens the fundamental authority of text? Can they accept the notion of text as a fluid medium? These issues will be the largest impediment blocking acceptance of electronic texts as legitimate professional resources.

One response is to reject the fluidity of electronic text and return to more traditional notions of publication. For example, several professional associations have already launched major electronic document archives that operate as the on-line equivalent to print publications -- including peer review and the preservation of definitive editions for each text.

Some examples:

• LANL's archive of physics and mathematics electronic documents.
• The Stanford LOCKSS project seeks to create a secure online document archive.