Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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INTRODUCTION
“You would th<strong>in</strong>k that classics is classics, but, <strong>in</strong> fact, the sensibilities <strong>in</strong>side the different
subdiscipl<strong>in</strong>es can be radically different” (Unnamed scholar cited <strong>in</strong> Harley et al. 2010, 74).
“It has always been the case that scholars need to cite primary and secondary texts <strong>in</strong> retraceable
form and argue cogently and replicably from the data to the conclusions, just as it has long been the
case that academic language, jargon, abbreviations, and conventions ought to be standardised with<strong>in</strong>
(if not between) discipl<strong>in</strong>es. None of the philosophies and practices of the Digital Classics community
need therefore be seen as new or unfamiliar” (Bodard 2008).
Classics is a complicated and <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary field with a wide-rang<strong>in</strong>g group of subdiscipl<strong>in</strong>es and a
seem<strong>in</strong>gly endless variety of technical challenges. Digital classics, for the purpose of this report, is
broadly def<strong>in</strong>ed as the use of digital technologies <strong>in</strong> any field related to the study of classical antiquity.
This report concentrates on projects that have focused on classical Greece, <strong>Rome</strong>, and the ancient
Middle and Near East, and generally on the period up to about 600 AD. It offers brief coverage of
projects with content from the medieval era, largely <strong>in</strong> the area of manuscript studies. The report
explores the state of the art <strong>in</strong> digital classics <strong>in</strong> terms of what projects exist and how they are used;
exam<strong>in</strong>es the <strong>in</strong>frastructure that currently exists to support digital classics as a discipl<strong>in</strong>e; and
<strong>in</strong>vestigates larger humanities cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure projects and exist<strong>in</strong>g tools or services that might be
repurposed for the digital classics.
To set the context, this report opens with an overview of the history of comput<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> classics. This is
followed by a look at large multidiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary classical digital libraries (i.e., those of the ancient Near
East, Greece, and <strong>Rome</strong>) and the types of advanced services and technologies they use and are likely to
require. Next is a summary of the various discipl<strong>in</strong>es of digital classics, the major projects <strong>in</strong> each, and
the major technologies <strong>in</strong> use. Next, an overview of digital humanities user studies attempts to get at
the needs of users of these projects, as no user studies of digital classicists could be found. An
overview of requirements for a cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure for digital classics, along with a survey of relevant
projects, follows. The report concludes by present<strong>in</strong>g recommendations for a humanities
cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure and relevant national and <strong>in</strong>ternational cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure projects.
CLASSICS AND COMPUTERS: A LONG HISTORY
The field of classical studies is broad and <strong>in</strong>cludes a variety of related discipl<strong>in</strong>es, such as ancient
history, archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, papyrology, philology, and prosopography, and the
impact of comput<strong>in</strong>g has varied greatly among them. 1 In 2000, Lorna Hardwick offered a useful
def<strong>in</strong>ition of the field:
As an academic discipl<strong>in</strong>e it is broad <strong>in</strong> terms of chronology, <strong>in</strong> geographical provenance and <strong>in</strong>
the range of specialisms on which it relies. It <strong>in</strong>volves the study of the languages, literatures,
histories, ideas, religion, science and technology, art, architecture and all aspects of the material
1 While each subsection of this report provides an overview of the important projects and issues for the discipl<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong> question, a quick perusal of the table
of contents (http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0754677737) of the recently published Digital Research <strong>in</strong> the Study of Classical Antiquity (Bodard and
Mahony 2010) illustrates the diversity of research <strong>in</strong> digital classics.