October 6-7, 2014 // Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Workshop: “Digitizing the Historical Record”
Andrew Stauffer, University of Virginia
This workshop is intended for anyone involved with the digitization of historical documents, especially those who would like to think about the larger issues and implications from a scholarly perspective. We will focus on the theoretical, methodological, and institutional issues involved in the translation of historical documents into digital formats for scholarly use. Rather than provide training in specific tools and methods, the course will emphasize the stakes, both local and systemic, of choices and protocols for creating digital versions of paper-based forms. Our examples will be chosen primarily from nineteenth-century literary materials published in Britain and America. Format will be primarily that of a discussion-based seminar, with some hands-on exercises.
Our attention will be divided between physical texts on the one hand and digital archives on the other. Our goal will be to examine the implications of various technological transformations on the system of books and other documents that support scholarly inquiry into past cultures. We will be considering topics such as markup, data, metadata, interface, visualization, and archiving from a theoretical angle, with specific examples simultaneously brought to bear from the world of print and the digital environment. Our attention will also be directed to larger practical considerations, including the choice of what to digitize, the building of institutional partnerships, the discovery and re-use of digitized content by the scholarly community, and the long-term life of digital projects.
Beiencke Library materials consulted in the workshop:
[Blow book], [late 1700s]. 2014.526
Uncataloged acquisition no. 30442
1978 Folio 11
Cohen, Claudia. Bookbinding ephemera; Paper.
Zac C66015 B64 2005
Coronelli, Vincenzo. Epitome cosmografica. (Colonia, 1693).
Eq21 693C
Davidson, Laura [Gertrude Stein]. Tender buttons, tenderly.
Zm St34
Ford, Charles Henri. Spare parts. (Athens: printed by Vassily Papachrysanthou, 1966).
Za F75 +966S
Johnson, B. S. The unfortunates. (New York: New Directions Pub., 2007).
New Directions 1415
Kilmer, Joyce. Trees and Other Poems. New York: George H. Doran, 1914.
Za K599 914
Manning, Samuel. American pictures drawn with pen and pencil. (London: The Religious Tract Society, [1876?]).
Zc10 +876ma
Parker, Gilbert. The weavers: a tale of England and Egypt of fifty years ago. New York : Harper & Brothers, 1907.
Baskin 556
Peret, Benjamin. Et les seins mouraient.
Ernst 147
Potter, Beatrix. The story of a fierce bad rabbit.
Shirley 629
Riddell, Robert. The Practical Carpenter and Joiner. 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1874).
2006 Folio 68
Scholder, Fritz. Fritz Scholder’s Book of symbols for children. (Munich, Germany: Nazraeli Press, 1994).
Nazraeli Press +15
Zab V3115 997E
Watts, Isaac. The Psalms of David. (Exeter, N.H.: J. J. Williams, printer, 1818).
Shirley 4300
Whittier, John Greenleaf. Tent on the Beach and other poems. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Za W618 867t and Za W618 867tb
YCAL MSS 229
Wordsworth, William. Winnowings from Wordsworth.
Zm W891
Wordsworth, William. Our English lakes, mountains, and waterfalls … photographically illustrated. London: A. W. Bennett, 1868.
1982 119
