[KS] first issue of Korean Histories

[Remco Breuker]

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your feedback, it's much appreciated. I appreciate the points
you make and we have thought about the issues you mention. Our first idea
was to make the journal fully online in the sense that you'd be able to read
the articles in your browser. But, as Roald points out, referencing becomes
a real issue then, not to mention the technical and design issues that then
come into play. Working with PDFs made it possible to work with a
professional designer and creating our own look and feel.

I should also make it clear that the decision to start an on-line journal
did not so much emerge from a sense of dissatisfaction with the traditional
media (maybe it's because I'm primarily a premodern historian, but I can
live with the hierarchies, conventions, and limitations of paper
publishing), but because of the added possibilities of on-line publishing:
inclusion of media files (granted, we have not done that yet in the first
issue), ease of distribution, reach, relatively short production cycles, the
ability to digitally archive and make accessible sources et cetera. In every
other way, *Korean Histories* is meant to be a journal that stands shoulder
to shoulder with the traditional paper publications. In the end, the
decision to start with *KH* emerged from academic concerns (history as a
social process and all that entails) and not from publishing format
concerns.

As for the forum, we are going to install a forum function, but (in the
spirit of traditional publishing I guess), it will not be a real time forum,
but rather a forum with a 'letters to the editor' format (I hope I'm not
sounding terribly old-fashioned here). Contributions will be moderated and
will be expected to be thought through. Although I see the value of real
time forums (and happily contribute to a number of them), I think that a
journal like *KH* would be better served with a delayed forum as it were in
order to stimulate creative dialogue. It might be an idea, however, to
create a separate *KH *blog (on the same site) and attach a real-time forum
to that.

Again thanks for your feedback and I'd welcome any other suggestions,
criticisms and ideas you have. We've only just started with this project and
there's a load of issues we are still solving, so any help is appreciated.

Remco.
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