1. The document discusses myths around the accessibility and audience of digital scholarly editions compared to print editions. While digital editions may provide faster access and better access to materials, they do not inherently provide more accessibility. 2. It also challenges the notion that digital editions reach a wider audience, noting that pageviews do not prove the size or nature of an audience. 3. Finally, it addresses the myth that the "clear best text" edition best fulfills the communicative and transmission functions of scholarly editing. The document advocates for digital editions that engage researchers and readers through social features like annotation and user-generated content.

1. Edward Vanhoutte
Director of Research & Publications, Royal Academy of Dutch Language & Literature
Hon. Research Associate, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
Editor-in-Chief, LLC: The Journal of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (OUP)
edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
@evanhoutte
Social, Digital, Scholarly Editing – Saskatoon – 12/07/2013
A Bag of Words
Social Perspectives on
Scholary Editing

2. No edition is more social than the full blown
conventional printed scholarly edition

3. No edition is more social than the full blown
conventional printed scholarly edition
1. Accessible
2. Clearly targeted audience
3. Explicit

4. 1. Accessible
● Well known technology
● Book shops
● Libraries

5. Myth 1
Digital editions are more accessible

6. Nuances
Digital editions are more accessible
● may provide faster accessibility

7. Nuances
Digital editions are more accessible
● may provide faster accessibility
● may provide better & direct accessibility to
representations of source materials

8. Nuances
Digital editions are more accessible.
● may provide faster accessibility
● may provide better & direct accessibility to
representations of source materials
● may provide better accessibility for analytical
tools

9. More accessible?
Only when the digital edition overcomes the
problems connected with the technology of
reading

10. Conclusion
Digital editions do not provide a quantitative higher
accessibility than printed editions
but a qualitative different accessibility

11. Myth 1
Digital editions are more accessible.

12. 2. Clearly Targeted Audience
[implied]
● Domain specialists:
● Fellow textual critics
● Fellow textual/literary scholars
● Students
● Publishing professionals

13. 2. Clearly Targeted Audience
● Different audience = Different type
● Different intent = Different type
● Student edition
● Reading edition
● Facsimile edition
→ Typologies
→ Formal orientations of editing

14. 2. Clearly Targeted Audience
Problem 1:
Digital edition is not a type of edition
→ 'Most digital scholarly editions were just
souped up books' [O'Donnel]
[Descriptive Classification Generator – 2007]

15. 2. Clearly Targeted Audience
Problem 2:
Exploration of technological possibilities
replaced
Clear articulation of intent and audience
→ Everything for everyone

16. Nuance
Digital editions reach a wider audience
than printed editions
● may potentially reach a wider audience

17. Nuance
Digital editions reach a wider audience
than printed editions
● may potentially reach a wider audience
● Audience ≠ online world
● Audience ≠ pagehits
● Audience ≠ crowd sourcers

18. Conclusion
Digital editions reach/attract a different audience
And pagehits don't prove anything!

19. Myth 2
Digital editions reach a wider audience

20. 3. Explicit
● Editorial principles
● Citeable text
● Critical apparatus / Record of variants

21. 3. Explicit
● Editorial principles
● Citeable text
● Critical apparatus / Record of variants

22. 3. Explicit
Critical apparatus / Record of variants
● Formalized
● Formulized
● Representation of research data
● Account for editorial choices

23. 3. Explicit
Critical apparatus / Record of variants
● explicit invitation for engagement with
● The edition
● The editorial choices / the editor
● The text/work
● Peers
→ Scholarly debate / publications

24. 3. Explicit
2 Problems:
● Economics
● Emotion

25. 3. Explicit
Central aim of textual scholarship:
Provide the humanities with the foundational data
for any sensible statement about texts/works
Scholarly edition [functions]:
● Transmissional: establishing the best possible
text for transmission over time
● Communicative: make sure it reaches as many
people as possible

26. 3. Explicit
Problem 1: Economics
● Reduction to meaningful variants only
● Stripping out all scholarly apparatus

27. 3. Explicit
Problem 1: Economics
● Reduction to meaningful variants
● Stripping out all scholarly apparatus
'Scholarly editing is a transaction between editor
& reader' [Eggert]
→ taking out the evidence of this transactional act
removes the main instrument for engagement

28. 3. Explicit
Problem 2: Emotion
● Barbed wire [Mumford]
● Cemetery of variants [Friedhofen – Koopmann]

29. 3. Explicit
Cemetery
● Historical function: testimonies of our past
● Social function: places to mourn
● Cultural function: record of meaningful lives
● Esthetic function: place for monumental art

30. 3. Explicit
Cemetery
● Historical function: testimonies of our past
● Social function: places to mourn
● Cultural function: record of meaningful lives
● Esthetic function: place for monumental art
● Freely accessible
● Very well organised layout
● Tools: find any tombstone within walking distance

31. 3. Explicit
Cemetery
● Confrontational place to engage with life
Cemetery of variants
● Confrontational place to engage with the text
→ But people fear confrontation
→ Clear best text editions were preferred model for
publishers whose main goal is to sell books

32. Myth 3
Communicative and transmissional
function is best fulfilled by the clear best
text edition

33. Myth 3
Communicative and transmissional
function is best fulfilled by the clear best
text edition

34. [Social] Digital Edition
● Engaging researchers
● Engaging readers / general public

38. Teleurgang van den Waterhoek
[2000]
● User choice of orientation text
● User text/image annotation
● User text/image links
● User link annotation
● Reading paths
→ Exchangeable between users

39. SGML [TEI] / HyTime
● Hard to produce
● Hard to deliver
● Hard to engage researchers / readers
Targeted audience: researchers
→ False presumption: there is a readership that
wants to engage with the edition/text in a social
way

41. In Oorlogsnood [2005]
● Calender driven
● No further dynamic user interaction
Targeted audience: general public
Huge success
→ 2 editions in print
● Theme: WW I
● Looking up birthday

44. De trein der traagheid [2012]
● Dynamic views on textual archive
● Dynamically generated scholarly
● Full record of variants
● Fully annotated
● Stable citeable edition included
Targeted audience: researchers
→ Request for clear text print edition for
general public

48. Correspondence of Stijn Streuvels [2013]
2,500 letters
● Archive: extension to catalogue
● Edition: fully annotated / images / indexed
● Text-base
Targeted audience: researchers / general public

49. Correspondence of Stijn Streuvels [2013]
→ Failed attempt at crowd sourcing
● Profound distrust of amateur editors
● Overvaluation of professional editors

50. Correspondence of Stijn Streuvels [2013]
A bag of words
● Corpus of ego-documents
● Exportable subcorpora
● XML files → Analytical tools

52. De Leeuw van Vlaenderen [2012]
● Text-critical reading edition
● Genetic essay
● Selective scholarly apparatus
Targeted audience: specialized readers /
researchers
→ Engagement: citations / scholarly debate