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Preliminary Reading List

Digitizing the Historical Record

Andrew Stauffer

Preliminary Advices

Required Reading

  1. Beddow, Michael, “What is XML and What Use is it? Some Answers from a Humanities Perspective.”
     
    Very basic, readable introduction to markup language, particularly the difference between HTML and XML. Warning: 10 years old.
  2. The Rare Book & Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA) has generated an online bibliography of resources.  The 13 essays under the “General Reading” header are all useful points of entry into the topics of the course.
  3. Earhart, Amy and Maura Ives, eds., “Digital Textual Studies: Past, Present, and Future,” Special Cluster in Digital Humanities Quarterly 3:3 (Summer 2009)
     
    Five recent essays and an introduction.
  4. Electronic Textual Editing, edited by Lou Burnard, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, and John Unsworth (New York: Modern Language Association, 2007).
     
    Helpful collection of recent essays on our subject, with electronic editing as the specific focus. The full-text of the book (in a slightly preliminary but essentially complete form) is available online.
  5. Extending the Reach of Southern Sources: Proceeding to Large-Scale Digitization of Manuscript Collections. University Library, UNC, Chapel Hill. Final Grant Report to the Mellon Foundation. June 2009.
     
    Report on the practical decisions involved in a large-scale digitization project within a university research library.
  6. Greene, Mark A. and Dennis Meissner. “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing.” The American Archivist 68 (Fall/Winter 2005), 208-263.  (Often referred to as “MPLP.”)
     
    Influential background article on the competing claims of care and speed in the processing of archival materials.
  7. Kaufman, Peter B. and Jeff Ubois. “Good Terms: Improving Commericial-Noncommercial Partnerships for Mass Digitization,” D-Lib Magazine 13:11/12 (Nov/Dec 2007).
     
    Summary of the practical issues involved as libraries work with commercial providers in building digital collections.
  8. McGann, Jerome. Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
     
    Influential analysis of the opportunities and challenges associated with electronic textual editing and documentary representation.

    9. Recommended Reading

    Read these if you have time, before or after the course.

  9. Companion to Digital Literary Studies, ed. Ray Siemens and Susan Schreibman (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
     
    Chapters 6, 24, and 30 are the most obviously relevant.
  10. Deegan, Marilyn and Kathryn Sutherland, eds. Text Editing, Print and the Digital World (Ashgate, 2009).
     
    Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 9 are most relevant to the course.
  11. Eggert, Paul. Securing the Past: Conservation in Art, Architecture, and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
     
    Chapters 8-10 are most immediately relevant to the course.
  12. Shillingsburg, Peter L. From Gutenberg to Google: Electronic Representations of Literary Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).