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

179
The ratio of male-to-female respondents was about 3:2, and almost two-thirds of respondents had PhD
degrees. Most were from Canada, followed by the United States, Europe, and Australia.
Approximately 25 percent to 30 percent had never performed any type of text analysis. In terms of
areas of specialization, more than 40 percent reported that they worked <strong>in</strong> literature, but “classics,
history and religion” was reported by 12 percent of participants. While the “dom<strong>in</strong>ant language” that
most scholars reported work<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> was English, a dozen other languages were identified; <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>gly,
more scholars reported work<strong>in</strong>g primarily with Lat<strong>in</strong> (17 percent) than with Italian (7 percent) or
Spanish (9 percent). While more than half of respondents worked primarily with materials from the
twentieth century, approximately 13 percent worked <strong>in</strong> ancient and “post-classical history.”
As teach<strong>in</strong>g and research are often <strong>in</strong>tertw<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> the humanities, Toms and O’Brien also asked
respondents how they used electronic texts and ICT <strong>in</strong> the classroom. About 60 percent of their
respondents taught courses <strong>in</strong> the humanities, but their use of technology <strong>in</strong> the classroom
overwhelm<strong>in</strong>gly <strong>in</strong>volved the general use of course websites, onl<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong>structional systems, and
textbook courseware. While <strong>in</strong> some cases students were required to create e-texts (39 percent), encode
texts us<strong>in</strong>g markup such as HTML or XML (72 percent), and use text-analysis tools (33 percent),
Toms and O’Brien reported that “a significant number of respondents (42 per cent) have not required
students to use any of these.” Thus although many e-humanists used text-analysis and digital
technology <strong>in</strong> their own research, there was an apparent disconnect for many <strong>in</strong> terms of their use of
technology <strong>in</strong> the classroom.
Another set of questions explored the research themes of e-humanists. The most prevalent theme listed
was the semantic or thematic exam<strong>in</strong>ation of the text/s of one or more authors (37 percent); this was
followed by the creation or use of specific electronic editions (20 percent) and the creation of
specialized catalogs or bibliographies us<strong>in</strong>g databases that already exist (13 percent). Only 13 percent
reported their ma<strong>in</strong> research theme as conduct<strong>in</strong>g “computational text analyses” or “develop<strong>in</strong>g
techniques for analysis.”
Questions regard<strong>in</strong>g the use of electronic texts and text-analysis tools made up a large proportion of the
survey, and 86 percent of respondents reported us<strong>in</strong>g e-texts. At the same time, only 34 percent had
used “publicly available” text-analysis tools and 61 percent had never scanned or encoded texts. In
terms of markup, more than half of the respondents stated that they preferred no markup <strong>in</strong> their e-texts
and almost 25 percent had no knowledge of TEI. Electronic texts were typically selected accord<strong>in</strong>g to
levels of access, special features, and cost, and <strong>in</strong> general scholars wanted texts to be legally accessible
and be available <strong>in</strong> a stable form and from reliable publishers or <strong>in</strong>stitutions. Similarly, more than 75
percent wanted e-texts to be peer-reviewed (with 67 percent preferr<strong>in</strong>g texts from established editions),
while 79 percent wanted e-texts to be accompanied by documentation. Surpris<strong>in</strong>gly, less than half of
those surveyed (48 percent) required page images to be available. Only 62 percent of respondents had
used text-analysis tools; those who had not used them reported various reasons <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g expense, low
priority, usability issues and technical <strong>in</strong>compatibility.
When participants were asked about their “wish list” for text-analysis tools, two of the most significant
desires listed were for <strong>in</strong>stitutions “to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> tools for the study and publication of e-texts” (41
percent) and for fellow researchers to share tools they had created (46 percent). While 66 percent of
participants had either created or contributed to the creation of text-analysis tools, most respondents
were unaware of currently available text-analysis tools. Of those that were aware of these tools,
respondents typically considered most of them to not be very useful. Desired text-analysis techniques
were quite varied, but the two most frequently desired capabilities were the to ability to compare two