Digital Editions

Participants in this course create their own digital editions of out-of-copyright texts. The completed editions are deposited in ORA-data for long-term preservation and reuse, as well as being published on the Taylor Editions website. For existing examples see: editions.mml.ox.ac.uk.

While accessing Special Collections continues to be challenging, scholarly editions can still be made based on Google Book images from Oxford collections, or from images from Digital Bodleian, the British Library or any other institution that makes its images openly available using the IIIF standard.

Why digitise?

It’s fun! Just like sketching can make you notice new things about a landscape (even if you’re not a talented artist!) the act of digitising a text can help you see things you hadn’t noticed before.

Understanding how a digital text is created can give a greater understanding of what can be legitimately interpreted from such texts using digital tools, and may suggest new ways of answering research questions.

An insight into the whole lifecycle of a digital text is very useful preparation for preparing grant applications for larger projects.

The digitised texts, even if not part of a large funded project, will be available for reuse and as such will be a valuable contribution to future research.

What do the sessions involve?

All sessions are available online at https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/training/ . While you can do them at any time, they have been designed around the 8-week term, and you are strongly encouraged to do one session each week.  After the introductory session, which gives advice on choosing a text to digitise, there are seven further short talks on various themes (see programme below) with additional resources giving guidance on all steps. A group drop-in session will also be available via Teams on Wednesdays, 1.30pm-2pm throughout term.  This will allow you to meet other people doing the course, meet the course leaders, and ask any questions that arise.

What these sessions do not cover?

These sessions do not cover the analysis of the digitised text using digital tools, although advice will be available on the types of tools available, and who to contact for further information.

Course Leaders

Emma Huber, Subject Librarian for German, was formerly a text-encoding reviewer for the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP), project co-ordinator for the Shakespeare Quartos Archive project and led two work packages for the large European FP7-funded IMPACT (Improving Access to Text) Project, disseminating best practice in digitisation with partner institutions including the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the British Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Frank Egerton, Sackler-Taylor Operations Manager, is a member of the TORCH Digital Humanities Steering Group and the Bodleian Research Data Management Group. He is a core course tutor on the MSt in Creative Writing and assessor for Creative Writing on the Certificate of Higher Education programme. In 2016 he was a co-investigator on an Oxford e-Research Centre visual analytics project on textual shape. He is a member of common room at Kellogg College.

Joanne Ferrari, Subject Consultant for Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American literatures and languages, and Subject Team Leader at the Taylor Institution Library has taught information skills classes on a range of topics for the last ten years. She is a member of the Bodleian Libraries E-Books Steering Group as the representative for European languages, and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She also co-edits the Taylorian blog.

Johanneke Sytsema, Subject Consultant for Linguistics, Dutch and Frisian and Fellow of the Frisian Academy, has a wide experience of transcribing manuscripts. For her PhD she transcribed 15th-17th century manuscripts, and went on to provide digital editions of two Oxford-based Old Frisian and Middle Dutch manuscripts (14th century). She is a member of the Bodleian Libraries SOLO User Group and is Linguistics Lecturer at St Edmund Hall.

Course Outline

All sessions are delivered online and can be completed at your own pace, although we highly recommend using the weekly structure to help pace yourself.

How to Register

The online materials are freely available, but please do register your interest in the drop-in sessions on Teams by emailing emma.huber@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.