Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

In 2018, the Florida State University Libraries created a digital interface for comparing versions of texts described according to the recommendations laid out by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). This interface was created as a tool for displaying genetic editions, which provide a dossier of multiple drafts and explore the revision process. However, the module, which was developed in Islandora for the Burroughs Archive, has the potential to be used in other contexts, such as variorum editions, critical apparatuses, (which are both used to show variant versions of texts) and even to compare translations. This presentation will provide an overview of the current Islandora module and how the data is created and formatted. We will discuss some of the tools that the University Library has created to convert TEI files into the format needed to create a full genetic edition. We will also introduce the next-steps the libraries are taking to create tools for other types of textual comparison. The presentation will also provide an overview of some of the best practices for creating these types of comparative editions using the TEI. We will also explore the reasons you—as a textual scholar, librarian, or other researcher—may want to create a comparative edition of one of your texts.

Sarah Stanley, Florida State University, Digital Humanities Librarian

Register here.