These are the slides of my lecture at the International Workshop on Electronic Editing (9-11 February 2012) in the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. The text of the lecture is published online on my blog http://edwardvanhoutte.blogspot.com/

1. Being Practical
Electronic editions of Flemish literary texts and
documents in an international perspective
Edward Vanhoutte
Director of Research & Publications, Royal Academy of Dutch Language & Literature
Head, Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies
Research Associate, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
Editor-in-Chief, LLC. The Journal of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
@evanhoutte

2. Wonne & Senne
Fridge explorers

3. Pictures harvested from the Internet
Type “fridge” on Google.

5. Pictures harvested from the Internet
Type “fridge” on Google.

6. CSE 1997
The contents should:
A. include logically selected, manageable textual content -- e.g., an edition of
a single work, a group of works generically or chronologically grouped;
B. include, when appropriate, authorial documents in addition to basic
text(s), such as adaptations, working notes, contracts, tables of contents,
prefaces, abstracts;
C. present appropriate second-party textual materials -- e.g., letters from
respondents may be desirable in an edition of letters;
D. include the editorial materials required by the kind of edition envisaged --
e.g., [1] prefaces and acknowledgements; [2] lists of sigla, symbols, and
abbreviations; [3] textual essay; [4] textual apparatus (or the functional
equivalent, e.g., hypertext links) and/or notes; [5] historical/interpretive
essay(s); [6] illustrations or charts, diagrams, maps; [7] historical/explanatory
notes; [8] appendices; [9] bibliography; [10] glossary; [11] index(es);
E. be logically arranged and easy to use;
F. include appropriate analytical and text retrieval tools, either as part of the
edition itself or as part of the access package for which the edition is
designed (e.g., network browsers).

7. CSE 2006
● Accuracy
● Adequacy
● Appropriateness
● Consistency
● Explicitness

9. with the tools of social media at its centre, the social
edition is process-driven, privileging interpretative
changes based on the input of many readers; text is
fluid, agency is collective, and many readers/editors,
rather than single editor, shape what is important and,
thus, broaden the editorial lens as well as the breadth,
depth, and scope of any edition produced in this way.
(Siemens et al., forthcoming)

11. The problem of two audiences
• Peers
• Common Reader

12. The problem of two natures
maximal edition
● academic product
● research data
● scholarly accuracy and scrutiny
● attitude towards problems and theories of the
text
● history of the text
→ Expert Reader

13. The problem of two natures
minimal edition
● cultural product
● reading edition
→ Common Reader

14. The problem of two natures
• Minimal edition: reading edition
• Maximal edition: variorum edition

15. The problem of two audiences and natures
• Minimal edition:
→ Reading edition
→ Common reader
• Maximal edition:
→ Variorum edition
→ Peers

16. Peers
1. Editors of the same text
2. Editors of the same author
3. Editors with related textual problems
4. Technology curious

18. Jos De Haes
(1920-1974)
Paul Snoek
(1933-1981)
Eddy Van Vliet
(1942-2002)

19. Jos De Haes
(1920-1974)
585 copies
three years
Paul Snoek
(1933-1981)
1,126 copies
three months
Eddy Van Vliet
(1942-2002)
756 copies
three years

20. Sold 3,800 copies over 2 years

21. Sold 300 copies each
- republication of first print edition
- variants
- documentary: genetic essay / contemporary reviews / biographical details
- essays

22. Sold ca. 1,000 copies over 4 years

23. ● Buyers of books are not interested in literature,
they’re interested in books as physical objects.
● Buyers of literature are not interested in a reliable
text specifically, but in any easily acquirable text.

24. De Smedt, Marcel & Vanhoutte, Edward (2000). Stijn Streuvels, De Teleurgang van den Waterhoek. Elektronisch-kritische editie/electronic-critical edition.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press/KANTL

25. Willem Elsschot, Achter
de Schermen.
Elektronische editie,
bezorgd door Peter de
Bruijn, Vincent Neyt en
Dirk Van Hulle.
Universtiteit
Antwerpen/Huygens
Instituut, 2007.

27. Knowledge site
The space and shape I will try to describe is one where textual
archives serve as a base for scholarly editions which serve in
tandem with every other sort of literary scholarship to create
knowledge sites of current and developing scholarship that
can also serve as pedagogical tools in an environment where
each user can choose an entry way, select a congenial set of
enabling contextual materials, and emerge with a personalized
interactive form of the work (serving the place of the well-
marked and dog-eared book), always able to plug back in for
more information or different perspectives.
(Peter Shillingsburg, From Gutenberg to Google. Electronic
Representations of Literary Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006, p. 88)

28. Fluid, co-operative and distributed editions
• Realizes Shillingsburg’s concept of knowledge sites
through the formation of active on-line communities
• Lavagnino’s suggestion of a model for electronic
editions based on interactive, collaborative work on texts
• Shillingsburg’s concepts of the convenient and the
practical edition
• Fredson Bowers’ concept of the ‘practical edition’

29. present to a broad audience as sound a text (usually
modernized and at a minimum price) as is consistent with
information that may be procurable through normal
scholarly channels and thus without more special research
than is economically feasible.
(Bowers, 1969, p. 26)

31. Swimming
• Michael Sperberg-McQueen :
• Why not to Teach Your Edition How to Swim
• How to Teach Your Edition How to Swim
• Peter Robinson
• Teach our editions to swim to the readers
• Why Editors Have to Learn to Swim

32. Why the Audience Have to Learn to Swim
Detailed manuals
• outline the functionalities of the edition in detail
• explain the anticipated audience
• how they can make use of the knowledge
which has been put into the edition
• how they can operate the included tools
• how they can replicate the editor’s research
• how they can interact with the edition
• how they can contribute to the edition.

33. Why the Audience Have to Learn to Swim
Papers and essays
• Examples
• Triggers
• Communication
Education