This document summarizes Peter Robinson's views on digital scholarly editions and interfaces. The key points are: 1. Robinson believes interfaces should not be the primary focus of digital scholarly editions. The accuracy of the data and making it available to others should be higher priorities. 2. There is too much emphasis placed on having the best interface to please grant funders rather than getting the data right. Editions should be created for scholarly communities, not projects or audiences. 3. Editions should make all data like images, transcripts, and collations freely available to all without restriction according to the model of "designed for generosity." The entire cultural archive will need to be re-edited digitally.

1. Why Interfaces Do Not and Should
Not Matter for Scholarly Digital
Editions
University of Graz
24 September 2016
Peter Robinson
peter.robinson@usask.ca
@scholdigeds

2. Something to read
“Project-based digital humanities and social, digital,
and scholarly editions”
Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 2016
See the link in the Twitter #DSEasInterfaces feed
Google: Peter Robinson Academia

8. The symposium will discuss the relationship
between digital scholarly editing and interfaces by
bringing together experts of DSEs and Interface
Design, editors and users of editions, web designers
and developers. It will include the discussion of
(graphical/user) interfaces of DSEs as much as
conceptualizing the digital edition itself as an
interface.
– Call for papers, Graz symposium on interfaces and editions, 1
February 2016
Digital Scholarly Editions as Interfaces

9. 1996

10. 2000

11. 2003

12. 2006

13. 2010

14. 1. Your interface is critical to the success of your
edition
2. With the right interface, the edition can reach a
far wider audience
Some truths universally acknowledged?

15. • Reach the widest possible audience
• Have the best possible interface
• Get the grant application right
• Get the data right
• Make the data available to others
Your priorities as an editor

16. 1. Get the grant application right
2. Have the best possible interface
3. Reach the widest possible audience
4. Get the data right
5. Make the data available to others
What you are likely to decide
WRONG

17. A scholarly edition is one where
scholarly attention has been paid to
every word
It’s the data, stupid

21. ACCURACY

23. Hamlet 1611, Bodleian Library copy,
page 11

25. Excessive concentration on the interface
• To please grant funders
• The fetishization of the document

26. Inferno 4.9: Martini copy
Mart-orig=Aldus 1515 Mart-c2=Martini collation

27. USE BY 1 JANUARY 2020

29. Ten years, three million editorial acts
• 14223 lines
• c. 102,000 words in each ms/edition. 9
mss/editions: c. 900,000 words
• 98,282 places of variation in the collation
• Approx 2 checks of each decision

30. My interface is your enemy
Me, quoted by Michael Sperberg-McQueen

31. 1. Get the data right
2. Make the data available to others
3. Have the best possible interface
4. Get the grant application right
5. Reach the widest possible audience
What you should decide

32. 1. Editions should be created for and by
communities
2. Editors should lead communities, not projects
3. Editions should be “designed for generosity”
Editors, editions, the community

33. Clay Shirkey: “Design for Generosity”
• Images, transcripts, collations made available
free to all without restriction
• A valid model of texts, documents and works
• Free to all means Free to all

34. Jerome McGann: “In the next 50 years the entirety of our
inherited archive of cultural works will have to be re-edited
within a network of digital storage.”

35. Where do I sign up?