michael buckland and patrick golden

Feb 24, 2012 Teldap 2012, Taipei 1

Michael Buckland and

Patrick GoldenElectronic Cultural Atlas Initiative,

and School of Information, University of California, Berkeley.

Editors’ Notes: A Case-study of Collaboration and Convergence in the Humanities

ecai.org/mellon2010/


Documentary Editions

The Humanities depend on access to historically important documents.

Documentary editors prepare ‘editions’ of documents such as letters, diaries, official statements, speeches, etc., that have value as evidence for political, intellectual, or social history.

Editors’ notes explain the people, places, ideas, and events involved.

‘Documentary editions’ provide a transcription of texts and add explanatory notes – and often chronologies, images, and explanatory essays


Example: Lecture Tours of Emma Goldmanhttp://metadata.berkeley.edu/emma/


A Case Study: Documentary Editions

Berkeley: Papers of Emma Goldman, 1869-1940, Anarchist.

New York: Papers of Margaret

Sanger, 1879-1966, birth control activist


Problems of Documentary Editions

Requires specialized expertise for many years.

Funding is difficult.

Much of the editors’ research not included because inconclusive or marginally relevant to the publication.

Limitations of the printed edition: Costly. Limit on number of pages, so editors’ notes reduced. Small editions bought by libraries. Not widely available.

Relatively isolated work.

Working notes and unpublished notes discarded.

The return on investment far less that it could be.


A Collaborative Project

How might the Web be used to help? “Editorial Practices and the Web” – started summer 2010.Focus on evolving editorial work practices rather than on technology. Supported by the A. W. Mellon Foundation.

Notes onweb


Participants

Emma Goldman Papers, Berkeley. Feminist and anarchist, 1869-1940.

Margaret Sanger Papers, New York University, Feminist and birth control advocate, 1879-1966.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers, Rutgers University: 19th century reformers, votes for women.

Labadie Collection, University of Michigan Library: Collection of Radical literature. Why a library collection?

Led by the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative, Berkeley.


Why include a library collection?

Not only editors who make notes. So do – or could – the curators of library special collections. Agnes Inglis, an admirer of Emma Goldman, curated the Labadie Collection and made 20,000 notes on filing cards.

Close overlap in subject matter with the three editing projects.

More important: Many different people make notes (archivists, curators, editors, historians, translators, etc.). All should share with all and with the public.

Expand the idea of ‘publication.’


A Case Study: A Digital Remedy Save as .html ! Make editors’ notes available in full as early as possible on a webpage regardless of what happens in the eventual published edition. Immediately available. Indexed by Google, etc.

Notes in memory or handwritten

Notes, clippings, images. in folders, boxes,

Brief notes in published volume

Notes keyed or scanned

Files in digital repositories

Detailed notes rapidly web accessible

More a change in work practice than a technical challenge. Published on the Web

Published

Ideas Working notes Notes


Architecture

Topic

Document FootnoteNote

Citation

has cites has

assigned to


Technology

• Django, the Python web framework• Postgres, using native support for XML fields • Xapian, for full-text search• South, for database migrations• Disqus, for discussion threads• Zoom.it, for high resolution scans• Zotero, for input and editing of bibliographical data

Design by Ryan B. Shaw, Univ. of North Carolina


A Case Study: editorsnotes.org Documents --- Topics --- Notes


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Note (Initial notes)


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Article-style note


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Note (Related documents)


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Note (Citation)


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Note (Related documents)


Topic: Bisbee Deportations – Linked source


• Liberate the notes!• Expand ‘publication’ to notes• Notes as a primary resource• Expand ‘library’• Published volumes as derivative• Modernize bibliography • Preserve the ‘workshop’• Make work environment closer to a shared office (convergence), enable collaboration, and support creativity.

Agenda

beta.editorsnotes.org ID: teldap Password: teldap2012

We thank the A. W. Mellon Foundation and of the Coleman Fung Foundation for support and the project collaborators.

ecai.org/mellon2010ecai.org/KnowledgeUnix