Scholarly Editions, Historians' Archives and Digital Libraries: The Pragmatics and the Rhetoric of Digital Humanities Scholarship

Abstract

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006." The development and current uses of digital libraries and digital environments supporting humanities scholarship will be analyzed through the agency of disciplinary communities that are primary users of these resources. The pioneering efforts of individual scholars and digital humanities initiatives are an integral part of the history of the first generation of digital libraries. Significant collections of primary source materials shaped by scholars themselves point to the social nature and disciplinary shaping of technological development, in which domain specialists have become technology innovators. The proposed paper will survey exemplary scholarly editing and archival projects of the first generation from the point of view of their developers. The paper will also present an analysis of the literature of the digital humanities field in relation to that development. Future trends of shaping collections of primary sources for user communities in the traditional disciplines will be discussed as well.