Hello all, Now that the website is up and running, I'd like to propose a commission for the list: let's start writing a primer on humanities computing for medievalists.
What I'm thinking of is using the wiki to write individual "chapters" and then combine them using a table of content wiki entry. This would also allow us to reuse "chapters" in different contexts (e.g. someone could add a TOC for "encoding medieval music" and reuse several already existing chapters).
Since this would be a collaborative effort, the precise contents would be a fluid and collective decision. I can only know what I'd like to see (or wish I had seen some time in the past):
-imaging: what it involves, whether I should/can scan from slides (what format), how much sharpening or colour-adjustment I ought to do, etc.
-Fonts: what is unicode? how do I access it? are there other systems? where do I find fonts? are their standards? how do I encode fonts in my web pages (not I am being deliberately naive here).
-Markup: structural vs. display vs. wordprocessing vs. text files: what's the difference? What should I keep in mind if I start a project? Why should I bother distinguishing between different types of italics using structural markup? Do I *have* to learn TEI?
-Project management: what is the typical life of a medieval computing project? what kind of funding and/or expertise would I need? Can I do it on my own? are there resources/books I should know about? Is there advice for publishing out the other end?
There are obviously many more questions and sub-questions one could ask.
Is this something people would be interested in? Any suggestions for possible topics? Volunteers to start writing?
The only thing I would ask if you are willing is that you sign your contributions by signing into the Wiki before editing. You don't have to, but this isn't a pure wiki: we are a collection of largely professional scholars whose business depends on responsibility. This would also allow us, if we were extremely pleased with the results, to publish a parallel version in some other format--assuming that's not a bad idea in some way I can't see.
I am willing to coordinate activities to the extent that that is necessary. My first inclination, however, is to propose the project and see what happens. Other ideas? Suggestions for getting started?
-dan