Session Proposal (Talk): Crowd-Sourcing the Scholarly Edition

One of the shortcomings of many digital editions is that they replicate the hierarchical relationship between editors/academics and reader/enthusiast. How can a digital edition encourage productive editorial input (transcribing, encoding, tagging) from its users to produce a scholarly edition capable of evolving with the needs of its multiple users and user communities?

Edgar Allan Poe is a good example as his works are widely read by a global audience that includes professors, students, horror & science fiction fans, and general readers alike. How these users work together in constructive ways to produce a more usable and extensible version of the best known web site dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe – The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore?

This Talk session will explore the challenges, rewards, and logistics of global, digital collaboration on the editing of scholarly editions of literary texts.

Categories: General, Session Proposals |

About Les Harrison

I am an associate professor in English specializing in nineteenth-century American literature and culture. I am conversant with the field of the digital humanities, although I have not, yet, made a substantial contribution to any existing digital humanities projects. This is my first THATCamp.