|
Joshua
Barney and the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla
A Documentary History
Project
Rationale
Often only the truly
dedicated reader uses maps and extensive annotations in books, because
flipping pages to endnotes and finding something on a detailed map is
tedious work. But if a click will take you to the exact place on a map
where a battle occurred, or to a biographical sketch and portrait, or
link you to a related document, then one’s historical experience
has been expanded and the editor has realized her mission to educate through
primary sources. It is also anticipated that having an interactive section
will further the discourse of the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake, provide
an avenue for comments and questions, and perhaps open up attic trunks
for documentary discoveries.
The rationale for
printing transcriptions of documents that are scattered among repositories
around the world is obvious. The reader is spared the time and expense
of locating documents and then traveling to the repository to view it
because photocopying is often not an option with fragile or bound letters.
Letterpress editions usually do not print facsimiles along with transcriptions
because of the added expense. Using facsimiles in a digital format, however,
is much less costly than in books, and the reader has the added advantage
of seeing the document herself without the mediation of the editor. Generally
speaking, the reader tends to appreciate the editor’s craft more
after viewing a facsimile, but the online version will provide more opportunities
for reader intervention.
I hope to show that
it is possible to provide a better-edited online edition, at less expense,
and accessible to more people than the printed version. Two factors still
militate against adoption of the digital medium--the tactile love of books
and the assumption by many traditional editors who are privately funded
that their publishers would never permit both an online and printed version
because it would hurt the sales of the latter. At the November 2002 meeting
of the Association for Documentary Editing (ADE), I took an informal poll
of about a dozen historical editing projects. While most embraced the
online potentialities for presenting some of their documents, most rejected
using it exclusively. However, most acknowledged that selling the volumes
did not pay their salaries but grants did. Perhaps editors would find
that their publishers might not be averse to experimenting with an online
version. Certainly three publishing representatives from Minnesota Historical
Society Press, the National Academy Press, and the Electronic Imprint
(EI), University Press of Virginia, reported their own initiatives in
online publishing at the ADE conference. Publishers are generally very
conservative but change is in the air.
|
