Are Electronic Editions Inherently Obsolete?

This paper looks at some of the theoretical background behind technologies being developed at the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre for a new form of resource for the study of historical works of literature. Some of the unique features of these technologies are that they support conflicting points of view (including conflicting structural markup) and also allow simultaneous, parallel development by multiple researchers on the same parts of the work. Archivists talk about maintaining digital assets through use rather than preservation so that demand for the asset will ensure its propagation long-term. To achieve this end a digital asset must be as versatile as possible so as to meet all requirements for those who might want to use it. If it does not do this it will be superseded by something that does meet those needs creating new witness states in the record and confusion for future literary researchers. The word "edition" is a term from the print paradigm and implies a fixed publication with features proscribed by the medium. Technical and feature obsolescence will eventually cause these "electronic editions" to be either superseded or lost from the human record. A better type of resource is one that can be continually developed by its multiple users, while maintaining its textual authenticity, thereby ensuring its continued maintenance long after its original creator is gone. This paper looks at the reasoning behind the need for a new paradigm for creating and maintaining text-based digital assets and provides examples of a work in progress that solves some of the inherent limitations of the print-based "edition" paradigm.Hosted by the Scholarly Text and Imaging Service (SETIS), the University of Sydney Library, and the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), the University of Sydney

Authenticating electronic editions

A book is generally seen as a trustworthy carrier of text because, once printed, text cannot be changed without leaving obvious physical evidence. This stability is accompanied by a corresponding inflexibility. Apart from handwritten marginal annotation, there is little augmentation or manipulation available to the user of a printed text. Electronic texts are far more malleable. They can be modified with great ease and speed. This modification may be careful and deliberate (e.g., editing, adding markup for a new scholarly purpose), it may be whimsical or mendacious (e.g., forgery), or it may be accidental (e.g., mistakes made while editing, or minor mistranslations by a software system). The nature of the medium makes the potential effect of these modifications greater because the different versions of the text can be quickly duplicated and distributed, beyond recall by the editor. Does the electronic future, then, hold in store something akin to medieval scribal culture? If this lack of control is the risk, will scholars be willing to put several years of their lives into the painstaking creation of electronic editions of important historical documents or works of literature and philosophy