Electronic Scholarly Editions, Kenneth M. Price

http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405148641/9781405148641.xml&chunk.id=ss1-6-5&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-6-5&brand=9781405148641_brand

Kenneth Price sets out his stall to examine how Electronic Scholarly Editions are changing how we look at and produce texts for scholarly research and examination. He indicates that there has been a move towards digital production over traditional methods in the last few years, yet he finds fault with this. The question of their sustainability is raised due to the internet’s ever changing technologies and methods of display. There is also a problem with those digitizing many of the works that are now part of electronic scholarly editions; according to Price, whilst they have the technological knowledge, they lack the content knowledge to produce sufficient and true versions of the original text or ideas. there is a difference between digitizing and scholarly editing according to Price; digitizing merely produces information, however, editing produces knowledge.
The reasons for making Electronic Scholarly editions is questioned in this piece but the author however focuses on the challenges involved rather than the reasons for this work. Price gives a few positives and at the start of the second section, such as an editors ability to have endless room and content in the archive along with the inclusion of illustration and colour that traditional publishing denies due to financial restraints. These ideas are then however turned on their head by Price. He raises the questions as to whether this content can then be seen as pure and wheter the author initially intended for it to be part of the original script, with Price suggesting that simpler texts are purer and better designed for archives meant to depict the true nature of the writer.
The question of what is relevant to the archive or edition is focused upon as one of great significance. Price argues that the scholarly editions that are made digitally allow for all the secondary sources, ideas and contributors to a text be explored and recognised but then counters this argument with a negative view of including so much material. He suggests that people fail to know where to draw the line in terms of author’s content; should phonebooks and shopping lists be included for example. For me, Price raises more questions here than he answers.
The difference between Digital Libraries and Scholarly Editions is next to be examined by Kenneth Price in this piece. He gives us the fundamental principles of the digital library as often commercial and more focused on providing quantity rather than quality. He suggests that digital libraries are designed to give a searchable body of material rather than a specialised body of material with scholarly judgement not being seen as paramount. Digital archives and editions are however, as seen by the author, more fine grained and intent on producing works that are close to the original and relevant to a specific area of study, rather than being part of a bigger picture. The issue of the finished article is also questioned, with Price suggesting that authors release material as it is finished in drips and drabs due to the fact that the scholarly editing is never finished on a specific text.
To finish the article, Price focuses on the problems related to online digital editions in the bigger picture. Issues of funding, translation, growth of audience and accessibility of the works being produced. He raises questions of funding and the difficulties involved in obtaining federal funding for projects involving more controversial writers for example. International standards of mark up and across the board use of TEI and XML marking up and tagging systems are vital for the growth of electronic scholarly editions also. Issues of translation, access and interpretation are all linked as editions are spread all over the world via the web. The editions must have the ability to change and adapt to their audiences in distant parts of the world due to language and access barriers.
To finish, I feel that Price's evaluation of Electronic Scholarly Editions is one that explores and examines in detail what many believe to be the future of the academic world.