Tasks/Devoirs
Some Challenges for the Next Phase of our work:
How to manage the flow of work? Each file now passes through several stages on its way to publication. We need a clear system for knowing what needs to be done next with each file. With so many ‘lieutenants’ in charge of the materials (from Chater to Freedman to Besson and then to Busson), we need a place to keep a list of what has been validated, and what has not. This is especially tricky, since we mainly correspond by email, and have no single place to look at where things stand. Could a table on our editors blog do this?
What might users want to know about the site? What kinds of projects or work might be suitable for them to share with still others? Classroom assignments? Transcriptions? Reconstructions? How should we manage this as part of the public blog for the project? See the examples started here on the Public Du Chemin Blog.
How might our projects be better integrated or coordinated with each other? We are already building some connections among the Coeurdevey/Freedman/Fiala projects (database, Du Chemin editions-facsimiles, Du Chemin literary texts). What sorts of standards will allow these projects to work more smoothly with each other? Would further work with the Dublin-Core standard help us link these (and other) resources more effectively, allowing users to find related materials by author, text, printer/scribe, date, etc?
How will users save, bookmark, and export what they find in these resources? Will users be able to cite a particular page or transcription using a unique and stable URL? Will they be able to save the results of searches (or export them) in some way? Might tools like Collex serve as a way for users to assemble their own “bookshelves” of digital documents and references, citing our resources as part of their research and publication? See Nines.org And how will they inform us of what they are doing with these resources?
What digital tools might allow us to produce new kinds of editions and critical reports? The Text Encoding Initiative has in recent years emerged as a powerful standard for digital editions. Now a new initiative aims to produce the same kind of standard for music: Music Encoding Initiative (MEI). Might a tool like this be a way to create digital music editions? Digital critical reports of musical variants? See this example of an edition with variants: Si la promesse