Fifteen years after the invention the web, Wired stated in its August 2005 issue that less than half of the web was commercial, with the other half being run by passion. As for the internet, according to the French daily Le Monde dated 19 August 2005, its three powers — ubiquity, variety and interactivity — made its potential use quasi infinite.
Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, and the founder of A Web of Online Dictionaries in 1995, wrote as early as September 1998: "The web will be an encyclopedia of the world by the world for the world. There will be no information or knowledge that anyone needs that will not be available. The major hindrance to international and interpersonal understanding, personal and institutional enhancement, will be removed. It would take a wilder imagination than mine to predict the effect of this development on the nature of humankind."
1990 > THE LINGUIST LIST
[Summary] The LINGUIST List was founded by Anthony Rodrigues Aristar in 1990 at the University of Western Australia, with 60 subscribers, before moving to Texas A&M University in 1991, with Eastern Michigan University established as the main editing site for the list. In 1997, emails sent to the distribution list were also available on the list's own website, in several sections: the profession (conferences, linguistic associations, programs), research and research support (papers, dissertation abstracts, projects, bibliographies, topics, texts), publications, pedagogy, language resources (languages, language families, dictionaries, regional information), and computer support (fonts and software). The LINGUIST List is a component of the WWW Virtual Library for linguistics.
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The LINGUIST List was founded by Anthony Rodrigues Aristar in 1990 at the University of Western Australia, as a mailing list for academic linguists.
With 60 subscribers, it moved to Texas A&M University in 1991, with Eastern Michigan University being established as the main editing site for the list.
In 1997, emails sent to the distribution list were also available on the list's own website, in several sections: the profession (conferences, linguistic associations, programs), research and research support (papers, dissertation abstracts, projects, bibliographies, topics, texts), publications, pedagogy, language resources (languages, language families, dictionaries, regional information), and computer support (fonts and software). The LINGUIST List is a component of the WWW Virtual Library for linguistics.
Helen Dry, co-moderator of the LINGUIST List since 1991, wrote in August 1998: "The LINGUIST List, which I moderate, has a policy of posting in any language, since it is a list for linguists. However, we discourage posting the same message in several languages, simply because of the burden extra messages put on our editorial staff. (We are not a bounce-back list, but a moderated one. So each message is organized into an issue with like messages by our student editors before it is posted.) Our experience has been that almost everyone chooses to post in English. But we do link to a translation facility that will present our pages in any of five languages; so a subscriber need not read LINGUIST in English unless s/he wishes to. We also try to have at least one student editor who is genuinely multilingual, so that readers can correspond with us in languages other than English."
She added in July 1999: "We are beginning to collect some primary data. For example, we have searchable databases of dissertation abstracts relevant to linguistics, of information on graduate and undergraduate linguistics programs, and of professional information about individual linguists. The dissertation abstracts collection is, to my knowledge, the only freely available electronic compilation in existence.