Wednesday, June 24, 2009

DH09: 3 Presentations: The Thomas Middleton Edition; a modern genetic edition of Goethe's Faust, An E-Framework for Scholarly Editions

1) 'Experiences of the Previous Generation: The Thomas Middleton Edition' by John Lavagnino at NUI Galway and King's College, London. Print edition finished publishing in 2007.

Some problems considered

Exchanging text problem
Rebirth of lightweight markup: Wikipedia, markdown (e.g. jottit.com). The problem with this approach starts out great but gets overloaded. Linking is a tedious chore, especially without software support. Losts of it in scholarly editions, in the Middleton Edition(60,000 links).

Line-number problem
line numbers for editions ususlaly done by many graduate students.
solution two the teo problems: preparea draft version, print line numbers key notes to texts link both works. Advantage: check for lemmas and line numbers. Pitfalls: notes to small common words can be mislocated, editors want to have notes to parts of words, and the effort to build it.

The machine problem
A machine transforms the XML into printed pages, and it must keep running in order to prepare new reprints. Currently built on top of TeX, shared body of code, EDMAC, its distance from the full system needed, and the diversity of scholarly editions.

The update problem
Outdated things like DSSSL, pre-Unicode, need to keep machine running, maintenance, the delusion of continuous expansion, potentially a bigger problem for online editions.

The variety of texts: editorial methods include multiple versions, parallel texts of various sorts,; unusual works: six-column parallel layout, marginal notes that run down the page; Editorial conventions: decimal line numbering of stage directions. Example, the MGH has editorial footnotes.

2) 'Requirements and tools for a modern genetic edition Goethe's Faust' by Fotis Jannidis. Earlier historical-critical editions: Weimarer Ausgabe. Goals: new critical edition, diplomatic transcription of all source texts, genetic view of all text to see their sources.

Problem 1: text- and document-centered view; text-centered view, drama, parts, acts, etc. vs the document-centered view, rendering the witness as closely as possible. Possible solutions: render the document using SVG and encode the text as standoff markup and secondly, encode the text and add selected document information.

Problem 2: genetic encoding: requirements involve linking all text in all documents to the final version of the text, include all temporal information. Solution: TEI SIG manuscripts--working on genetic editions. Working in the area of genetic editions: Elena Pierazzo, Malte Rehbein and me.

Outline:
Textual alterations
time
critical apparatus
genetic relations between and within documents
document editorial decisions

Problem 3: Interoperability
Requirements for open access, creative commons, access to the xml-encoded text, persistent builder. The solution involves linking to XML-version in html header, linking to canonical reference schema (part, act, scene, verse), DNB; and last, Open for PI for which parts/views of the edition?

Relevant websites:
www.faustedition.de
www.textgrid.de
wiki.tei-c.org/index.php/Genetic_Editions

3) 'An E-Framework for Scholarly Editions' by Susan Schreibman of the DHO. Why an E-Framework? The crisis in scholarly publishing is acute. Yet, very little has been done in the last 15 years. The digital silo approach is philosophical and pragmatic approach yet is increasingly expensive and leaves large legacy issues (upkeep, migration, preservation). Aacdemic credit is another issue: no universally recognized peer review system to evaluate e-scholarship (NINES is investigating a model); larger diversity of scholarly outputs than in analogue form; humanities have not come to terms with collaboration. Is the digital a solution? Digital is not a cheap solution; issues of sustainability, etc.

Models: scholarly communities
TextGrid and NINES are good examples.

Models: university presses
University of Virginia Press Scholarly Imprint
Rice University Press

Principles for emerging systems for scholarly publishing (2000).


The Idea of an Irish Digital Scholarly Imprint, March 2009.
Taking the best of these models: infrastructure, social structures and preservation.

  • Types of text to be published: traditional scholarly forms, backlists, reprints out of print texts, runs of texts; new forms: online scholarly editions, thematic research collections, new types of editions based on primary sources of print editions.
  • Economic considerations must have a cost recovery model: print on demand, subscription, pay per view, who pays for making avialable texts for the public good?
  • Issues of collaboration: how to acknowledge and give credit for, roles what can be expected from the authors in these new roles?
  • Possibilities for collaborations: libraries, tourism, cultural heritage.
  • Technical issues: permanent identifers, migration, new compilations, authenticity of texts to allow multiple editions to be displayed simultaneously.

See the same day blog entry for the DHO for how the DHO is solving these problems.

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