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

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exam<strong>in</strong>e how l<strong>in</strong>guistic features have changed across historical corpora. Toufexis argued that digital
editions could thus solve the problems of both philologists and historical l<strong>in</strong>guists:
A technology-based approach can help us resolve this conflict: <strong>in</strong> a digital environment
‘economy of space’ is no longer an issue. By lift<strong>in</strong>g the constra<strong>in</strong>ts of pr<strong>in</strong>ted editions, a digital
edition can serve the needs of both philologists and historical l<strong>in</strong>guistics (or for that matter any
other scholar who has an <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> approach<strong>in</strong>g ancient texts). A ‘plural’ representation of
ancient texts <strong>in</strong> digital form, especially those transmitted <strong>in</strong> ‘fluid’ form, is today a perfectly
viable alternative to a pr<strong>in</strong>ted edition. Only a few years ago such a digital endeavor seemed
technologically impossible or someth<strong>in</strong>g reserved for the very few computer-literate editors
(Toufexis 2010, 114-115).
Even if critical editors could not be conv<strong>in</strong>ced to change the way they edited texts, Toufexis hoped that
most of the problems of critical editions could at least be ameliorated by be<strong>in</strong>g transposed to a digital
medium, because digital editions could make editorial choices transparent by l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g the apparatus
criticus to the electronic text and could be accompanied by digital images of manuscript witnesses.
Digital editions, Toufexis argued, were ultimately far better for readers as well, because “a pluralistic
digital edition encourages readers to approach all transmitted texts equally, even if one text is
highlighted among the many texts <strong>in</strong>cluded <strong>in</strong> the edition” (Toufexis 2010, 117-118).
New Models of Collaboration, Tools, and Frameworks for Digital Editions
Digital tools create new opportunities for textual edit<strong>in</strong>g and the creation of digital editions, and one
key area of opportunity is the ability to support new types of collaboration. Tobias Blanke has recently
suggested that “traditional humanities activities such as the creation of critical editions could benefit
from the collaboration <strong>in</strong> research enabled by new <strong>in</strong>frastructures that e-Science promises to deliver”
(Blanke 2010). Indeed, Peter Rob<strong>in</strong>son has argued that the s<strong>in</strong>gle greatest shift <strong>in</strong> edit<strong>in</strong>g practice
brought about by the digital world is “that it is creat<strong>in</strong>g new models of collaboration: it changes who
we collaborate with, how we collaborate, and what we mean by collaboration” (Rob<strong>in</strong>son 2010).
Rob<strong>in</strong>son conv<strong>in</strong>c<strong>in</strong>gly argued that the first digital editions did not challenge the traditional editorial
model, where a s<strong>in</strong>gle editor frequently gathered materials and made all f<strong>in</strong>al edit<strong>in</strong>g decisions, even if
he or she had a number of partners <strong>in</strong> terms of publish<strong>in</strong>g. In the digital world, Rob<strong>in</strong>son proposed, a
new model is possible. In such a model, libraries could put up images of manuscripts, various scholars,
students, or experts could make transcriptions that l<strong>in</strong>k to these images; other scholars could collate
these transcriptions and publish editions onl<strong>in</strong>e l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g to both the transcriptions and images; still other
scholars could analyze these collations and create an apparatus or commentaries; and yet other scholars
could then l<strong>in</strong>k to these commentaries. All these activities could occur <strong>in</strong>dependently or together.
Rob<strong>in</strong>son granted that more traditional, s<strong>in</strong>gle-editor-controlled editions can be made <strong>in</strong> the digital
world. He argued, however, that such editions are far too expensive, particularly s<strong>in</strong>ce an editor cannot
simply present samples onl<strong>in</strong>e but also needs to provide access to all images and transcriptions of the
text. The s<strong>in</strong>gle-editor model, he believed, would also lead <strong>in</strong>evitably to the sole creation of a limited
number of digital editions of major works by well-studied authors. Rob<strong>in</strong>son reported that there had
been a scholarly backlash aga<strong>in</strong>st the creation of such high-profile and expensive digital editions <strong>in</strong> the
past few years, where the divide was largely between those with access to expensive tools and those
without. He concluded that this backlash directly contributed to the clos<strong>in</strong>g of the Arts and Humanities
Data Service (AHDS).