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What is the Catalogue of Digital Editions?

The present website showcases the research data collection work undertaken as part of my PhD work at the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities under the supervision of Prof. Melissa Terras and Simon Mahony. This research seeks to examine best practice in the field of digital editions by collating relevant evidence in a detailed catalogue of extant electronic text projects. The editions included in the Catalogue come from numerous sources and their selection follows basic criteria: the electronic texts can be ongoing or complete projects, born-digital editions or electronic reproductions of print volumes.

Lists of digital editions already exist and have been around for many years:

• Associazione per l'Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale Wiki
• Digital Classicist
• Dr. Aurélien Berra
• Dr. Paolo Monella (section 2.2)
• Dr. Cinzia Pusceddu
• Dr. Patrick Sahle's Catalog of Digital Scholarly Editions
• Hunter College
• Monastic Manuscript Project, http://earlymedievalmonasticism.org/listoflinks.html#Digital
• Projects using the TEI, http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/Projects/index.xml
• UCLA’s Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts, http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu/index.php

None, however, record project features, nor do they provide an easy means of browsing, viewing and downloading the data. This Catalogue was set-up to fill this gap as it not only provides an up-to-date record of what is currently available but breaks projects down into their constituent parts for a detailed understanding of their creation.

The Catalogue is of great benefit as it provides:

• an accessible, unique record of what has been used and tested in the past, what works and what does not;
• an insight into past, present and future projects;
• the possibility of viewing trends or patterns (e.g. what time periods are most covered or which institutions produce the largest number of digital editions);
• a means of identifying which areas need to be improved and flagging up broken links or errors.

While currently serving as a doctoral survey, the Catalogue is being developed into a larger resource. With this website, I hope to encourage interested scholars to contribute to the project and, together, record extant electronic editions for the benefit of the Digital Humanities community.

For more information on how to contribute to the Catalogue, visit the NAME page on this website.

While open to contributions, I'm the only manager of the Catalogue.