Not to forget of course the problem of accessibility and longevity. If digital editions are indeed defined by the fact that they exploit the possibilities of digital media, then it is problematic to say the least that we have not really solved the issue that our current digital editions are very much tied to particular versions of software/operating systems/browers/devices.

 

It is not enough that we can say that the underlying data is safe because it is encoded in formats that will last (like XML TEI), because I don’t think we can say the same for the functionality which we build on top of our data. Unless one has both the technical skill and the resources to keep updating the interface and architecture of one’s online editions there will come a point in the not so distant future when things will stop working and all we are left with are the data.

 

Godfried Croenen

 

From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Andrew Dunning
Sent: 14 March 2013 19:57
To: Digital Medievalist
Subject: Re: [dm-l] New article on "Medievalists and the Scholarly Digital Edition"

 

I really enjoyed this paper as well. I think it's pretty obvious why digital editions are not more popular with both authors and readers, some of which are touched on in the article:

- Compared to a printed book, they're miserable to read, since they tend to be designed first for technical analysis, and any attention to typography is typically a very low priority. (Granted, this is a problem with most e-books.)

- There's no guarantee in many cases that citations made from digital editions will be stable.

- It's far easier to put a good printed edition together than a good digital edition, especially because of the lack of standard, user-friendly tools.
- There is no standard way of presenting online critical editions (whereas most printed texts are published in series that follow a style guide).

- Delving into academic politics, publishers hate them and many universities don't count digital projects toward tenure.

 

None of these problems are insurmountable, and most have been tackled already by someone, but I'm really looking forward to a solution that at least tackles the technical aspects of these problems.

Andrew Dunning
PhD Student, Collaborative Program in Editing Medieval Texts
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 6:29 AM, Roberto Rosselli Del Turco <rosselli@ling.unipi.it> wrote:

> Dot, what a very good job!  I am only a bit surprised that we are not
> making steady progress towards some goal -- that's not really the wqy
> human beings do things -- but it is a litttle disconcerting to think that
> while more and more people are doing digital or difitized editions (I
> agree with that very ueful distinction), users of editions seem ro remain
> happy with print.  If I were younger (I was there at Hoyt's PP/SEENET
> paper). I might try to think of some kind of campaign, but perhaps it's
> best to let things develop as they will ?

I took part to a workshop about digital scholarly edition organized by
NeDiMAH last November
(http://www.nedimah.eu/call-for-papers/expert-meeting-digital-scholarly-editions)
and gave a paper titled "The battle we forgot to fight: Should we make a
case for digital editions?". In short, no, I think we should definitely
advocate creation and use of digital editions ... but also that first we
should define more clearly what a digital edition *is*, see Dot's
distinction above as a starting point (there surely are many other types
and sub-types). Personally I think we lack a clear perspective and need a
sort of "DEI" (Digital Edition Initiative) that can help interested
scholars with support, guidelines etc. (also help gather together,
conferences like ESTS and such are very useful, but we lack a "central"
place where to go).


R



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