Tuesday, 6 December 2011

European-Flavoured Digital Editions

As it happens, I'm the co-chair of a working group on Digital Editions of NeDiMAH.

All clear? In case it is not so clear, NeDiMAH is the European Science Foundation Network for Digital Methods in the Arts and Humanities. The network groups representatives of 13 European countries (in no particular order): United Kingdom, Danemark, Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Croatia, France, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Germany (yes, Italy is missing... and this is a huge problem as it seems we cannot involve many Italian colleagues or held event there... and I'm not commenting on the european dissemination of Italian research, no I'm not) .

This network is organised in six working groups, and one of them is on Digital Editions, which I happen to co-chair with Matthew Driscoll.

We met in Copenhagen on the 5 December and it has been great fun, I met people I haven't seen since long time (Hilde Boe, Peter Boot), seen some dear friends (Malte Rehbein, Marjorie Burghart) and met people for the first time (Mats Dahlström, Michael Stolz).

In the next 4 years we will be looking into many issues connected with digital editions, such us:

  • Theory of digital editions
  • Production of digital editions
  • Delivery of digital editions 
  • The role and changing nature of the editor
  • Long term issues (preservation, impact, sustainability)
We have in the radar a few events (an expert seminar and few workshops) and publications such as a few articles in journals and a print publication.
The first two topics we will concentrate on are the skill set for editors and the role of technology in the editorial work (stemmed somehow from my presentation at the TEI Members meeting which is the object of another post on this blog), and new approaches to critical apparatus and textual scholarship, which should be embodied in two articles.

Well, can I say I can't wait to get my greedy hands on this? We will have so much fun!