TEXTE · Transfer of expertise in technologies of editing

Final Activity Report Summary - TEXTE (Transfer of Expertise in Technologies of Editing)

The project was designed to develop new interdisciplinary research competence at the National University of Ireland, Galway by transferring to staff and researchers up-to-date knowledge about the theories and practices of textual editing with new technologies. Specifically, the project aimed to develop NUI Galway's capacity to generate innovative scholarly editions and hypertext archives by combining scientific technologies of digital imaging, encoding, collation, and reproduction with editorial, critical and analytical skills derived from literary and historical studies. In doing so, the research sought to address problems associated with the editing and dissemination of knowledge, especially the textual heritage of European culture. Six experienced researchers from the UK, France, Germany, Bulgaria and the US were recruited to create four pilot digital editions using different kinds of textual material. The researchers brought with them a mixture of expertise in scholarly editing and the use of digital technologies in humanities research. In addition to working on specific research tasks, they advised and mentored NUI Galway staff and students, and led seminars and workshops to transfer knowledge and stimulate the development of digital humanities research at NUI Galway. Eight partner institutions in Europe and the US were associated with the TEXTE programme, and one partner, the University of Virginia, hosted a member of the NUI Galway staff on a two-month secondment. In the course of the programme, four innovative digital editions were created: 1. "The Correspondence of James Barry" (ed. Timothy McLoughlin). All the known correspondence of the Irish painter James Barry (1741-1806), presented in digital transcriptions and manuscript facsimiles, with scholarly annotation, reproductions of visual works and other materials referred to in letters, and a digital catalogue of Barry's library. 2. "Kundige bok 2" (ed. Malte Rehbein). A dynamic electronic edition of a series of administrative records from late medieval Göttingen. The edition allows the user to visually re-create the state of the manuscript at various points on a historical timeline, and to perform complex searches for themes, words, places and names. 3. "The Cleland Collection" (ed. John Moulden). A digital edition of unique set of nineteenth-century songbooks and other printed texts owned by a farming family in County Down, Ireland. The edition presents transcriptions, facsimiles, annotations and a matrix for demonstrating relations between the Cleland texts and the wider networks of ballad circulation, song trade and printing houses. 4. "The Dublin Penny Journal: A Digital Edition" (ed. Paul Caton). The complete run of this important early nineteenth-century illustrated weekly periodical devoted to Irish history and culture. Presented as both digital facsimile and as fully-indexed transcription, allowing for complex searches of text and illustration by theme, place, person, author, title and text-string. TEXTE researchers also published 23 articles related to the programme research, presented 51 papers at international conferences and workshops, and led 40 research workshops at NUI Galway. The knowledge and expertise they embedded at NUI Galway has subsequently led to an enhancement of the university's MA programmes, the establishment of an inter-institutional PhD in Digital Arts and Humanities, and allowed NUI Galway researchers to participate in national digital humanities initiatives such the Digital Humanities Observatory and the National Audio-Visual Repository.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз