Thinking Long Term about Digital Editions (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Stanford Univ.
Organizer Name
Benjamin Albritton
Organizer Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Presider Name
Georgia Henley
Presider Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Paper Title 1
Global Medieval Sourcebook
Presenter 1 Name
Mae Lyons-Penner
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Paper Title 2
Scholastic Commentaries and Texts Archive
Presenter 2 Name
Jeffrey Witt
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Loyola Univ. Maryland
Paper Title 3
Digital Rolls and Fragments
Presenter 3 Name
Joe Stadolnik
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. College London
Paper Title 4
Musical Editions
Presenter 4 Name
Jennifer Bain
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Dalhousie Univ.
Start Date
10-5-2018 10:00 AM
Session Location
Sangren 1740
Description
A print edition of a medieval text can last for longer than a century with no loss in usefulness or accessibility. By contrast, born-digital editions can last 3-5 years, if we're lucky, before the cracks start to show and the user interface begins to look dated. Many digital projects are often obsolete or in need of serious maintenance after a decade. How do we start to bridge the gap between the stable and accessible print edition and the comparatively fragile and ephemeral digital edition? Are there new paradigms emerging in the making of critical editions, like crowdsourcing or new modes of presentation, that point to a radical rethinking of the edition as a dynamic and flexible experience of the text, or are digital approaches confirming traditional editorial methods with the goal of the presentation of an approved, curated text that will endure for generations?
This session presents participants who are actively engaged in the creation of digital editions, or who are actively maintaining an existing project, to discuss aspects of the digital edition related to sustainability, long-term use, strategies and methodologies to avoid premature obsolescence, and online permanence in an era of scholarly mobility and geographically distributed colleagues.
Benjamin Albritton
Thinking Long Term about Digital Editions (A Roundtable)
Sangren 1740
A print edition of a medieval text can last for longer than a century with no loss in usefulness or accessibility. By contrast, born-digital editions can last 3-5 years, if we're lucky, before the cracks start to show and the user interface begins to look dated. Many digital projects are often obsolete or in need of serious maintenance after a decade. How do we start to bridge the gap between the stable and accessible print edition and the comparatively fragile and ephemeral digital edition? Are there new paradigms emerging in the making of critical editions, like crowdsourcing or new modes of presentation, that point to a radical rethinking of the edition as a dynamic and flexible experience of the text, or are digital approaches confirming traditional editorial methods with the goal of the presentation of an approved, curated text that will endure for generations?
This session presents participants who are actively engaged in the creation of digital editions, or who are actively maintaining an existing project, to discuss aspects of the digital edition related to sustainability, long-term use, strategies and methodologies to avoid premature obsolescence, and online permanence in an era of scholarly mobility and geographically distributed colleagues.
Benjamin Albritton