Electronic Archives: Creating a New Bibliographic Code

Electronic Archives: Creating a New Bibliographic
Code

Jennie
Evenson
Department of English Language and Literature University of Michigan
jevenson@umich.edu

1999

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

ACH/ALLC 1999

editor

encoder

Sara
A.
Schmidt

Electronic archives have two distinct bibliographic codes: that of the original
texts in the archive, and that of the archive itself. With the rise of
bibliographic code scholarship among textual theorists such as Jerome McGann and
Peter Shillingsburg, editors can no longer assume that the new bibliographic
code produced by the design and apparatus of electronic archives is transparent
George Bornstein, "Beyond Codex Editing: A Prototype for the
Hypermedia Yeats Project," in Yeats: An Annual of Critical
and Textual Studies, vol. XIV, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), especially pp. 50-51. Please see
the chapter titled "What is Critical Editing?" written by Jerome McGann,
The Textual Condition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1991), especially p. 57 for a discussion of bibliographic
codes. See Jerome McGann, "The Rationale of Hypertext," 6 May 1995, <> (2 Dec 1998). Also
by Jerome McGann, see "The Rossetti Archive and Image-Based Electronic
Editing," in The Literary Text in the Digital Age,
ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)
145-84; "Rossetti's Iconic Page," in The Iconic Page in
Manuscript, Print, and Digital Culture, ed. George Bornstein and
Theresa Tinkle (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998) 123-40; and
"The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia
Research Archive," TEXT 7 (1994): 95-105. Also,
please see Peter Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing in the
Computer Age (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996);
"Polymorphic, Polysemic, Protean, Reliable, Electronic Texts," in Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities, ed.
George Bornstein and Ralph G. Williams (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1993) 29-43; and Peter Shillingsburg, "Principles for Electronic
Archives, Scholarly Editions, and Tutorials," in The
Literary Text in the Digital Age, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996) 23-36.. The purpose of
this paper is to distinguish between the two bibliographic codes in electronic
archives and to identify some of the ways these new bibliographic codes reflect
modern editorial decisions and interpretations of the text. Issues of copyright
limitations, rapidly obsolescent technology, visual privileging of hyperlinks,
constructed searching, and economic and political associations of software focus
the discussion of electronic archives on the visual display of information.
Jerome McGann created and helped design the first demonstration model of the
Rossetti Archive at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at
the University of Virginia in 1993Please see the Jerome McGann, "The
Rossetti Archive," Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities,
<> (2 Dec
1998).. The images of manuscripts and paintings are blurry and
difficult to read. The bibliographic code in the Rossetti
Archive reveals that it was created several years ago. Rapid
improvements in digital imaging technology preclude longevity of quality for the
bibliographic code preserved in images. The level of imaging technology within
the archive, then, begins to carry meaning. The visual display of images also
shapes the meanings of the text. The Electronic Beowulf
shows a number of independent images from the text of Beowulf, including that of
Beowulf's battle with Grendel in an historiated letterSee Kevin S.
Kiernan, "The Electronic Beowulf," The British Library Board, <> (2 Dec
1998), especially the section "Digital Preservation, Restoration, and
Dissemination of Medieval Manuscripts," <> (9 Dec
1998).. The thumbnail image of the manuscript is cropped to place the
focus on the violent action in the drawing, highlighting the battle portion of
the text with images. The full image is relegated to another screen. The
cropping of the image and displacement of the original text exposes the modern
editorial interpretation of the manuscript.
Hypertext pervades the design of electronic archives. Because hypertext is often
underlined and a different color than the surrounding text, hypertext is
visually disruptiveFor a discussion of electronic medium typography,
please see Jay David Bolter, "Topographic Writing: Hypertext and the
Electronic Writing Space," in Hypermedia and Literary
Studies, ed. Paul Delany and George P. Landow (Cambridge,
London: MIT Press, 1991) 105-18. Also see the chapter titled "Hypertext and
Critical Theory" in George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The
Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
(Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) 33-45..
The color distraction of hyperlinks gains the semantic value of privilege.
Information about archives often consists of text and hypertext combined, as in
the Electronic Dickinson ArchiveSee Martha
Nell Smith, et al., "Dickinson Electronic Archive," Institute for Advanced
Technology in the Humanities, 1998, <> (2 Dec
1998).. The word "alabaster" is highlighted repeatedly within the
site, emphasizing this word and all its connotations of whiteness, purity,
frailty, and most importantly, femininity. If one of the purposes of the archive
was to take Dickinson's manuscripts from their pure, removed existence and to
make visible the "paste marks, stains, pinholes, and gradations between pencil
and pen" of the manuscripts, then highlighting this word works against this
purpose See the discussion of the Dickinson archive in Martha Nell
Smith, et al., "Dickinson Electronic Archive," Institute for Advanced
Technology in the Humanities, 1998, <> (2 Dec 1998).
Also see "The Importance of a Hypermedia Archive of Dickinson's Creative
Work," The Emily Dickinson Journal IV.1 (1995): 77
and "Corporealizations of Dickinson and Interpretive Machines," in The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital
Culture, ed. George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1998) 195-222.. In addition, copyright
limits electronic archives. Despite intentions of disseminating the visual
aspects of Dickinson's work, the archive is riddled with the difficulties of
constructing a complete electronic archive under copyright law. The lack of
complete materials impacts every aspect of the archive-from access to materials
to searching-and the user will only be able to view what is available.
The searching and navigation systems of the electronic archive also influence the
information available to the user. Search engines function as part of the
navigation system and as part of the indexing process. Results given by the
index and the search engine determine what information will be found and used;
as such, it influences what the user views in the electronic archive. Editors
encode decisions within the tags that are administered in the textual mark up
process; that is, the editors chose tags and decide how the tags will be used
Robin C. Cover and Peter M. W. Robinson, "Encoding Textual
Criticism," Computers in the Humanities 29 (1995):
123-36. Also see Peter M. W. Robinson, "Collation, Textual Criticism,
Publication, and the Computer," TEXT 7 (1994):
77-94; C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, "Textual Criticism and the Text Encoding
Initiative," in The Literary Text in the Digital
Age, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1996) 37-62; John Lavagnino, "Completeness and Adequacy in Text
Encoding," in The Literary Text in the Digital Age,
ed. Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)
63-76; and Susan Hockey, "Creating and Using Electronic Editions," in The Literary Text in the Digital Age, ed. Richard J.
Finneran (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)..
Information returned on a search reflects these choices. A search engine, as
part of the standard apparatus, is constructed and thus shapes the indexing of
the electronic archive.
The markup language and computer programs aid in constructing the layout of the
archive. Like a printer's colophon, the computer language used by the archive
can encode certain meanings. Each language-from SGML to Java-is owned by a
company and carries political currency. Sun Microsystems, the owner of the
computer language Java, has been embroiled in legal battles with Microsoft over
the usage of Java See the chapter titled "The Politics of Hypertext:
Who Controls the Text?" in George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0:
The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
(Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) 267-300 and
David Silverman, "SGML and the Future of Electronic Documents," Wired 3.08 (1995), <> (8 Dec
1998).. One of the results of this dispute is that Microsoft's Web
browser Explorer does not support certain sections of Java applications. The
William Blake Archive uses Java in some sections of
the archive to support the image functionsSee Morris Eaves, Robert
Essick and Joseph Viscomi, "The William Blake Archive," Institute for
Advanced Technology in the Humanities, <> (2 Dec 1998).. These
sections of the archive application written in Java encounter problems on the
Macintosh computer, which uses a operating system that competes with the systems
created by Sun Microsystems and MicrosoftPlease see the discussion
of known technical difficulties at Morris Eaves, Robert Essick and Joseph
Viscomi, "The William Blake Archive," Institute for Advanced Technology in
the Humanities, <> (2 Dec
1998).. Computer languages used to structure the archive can carry an
economic and political charge, with consequences that affect the bibliographic
code of the archive. Like the political associations of the Dun Emer (Cuala)
Press discussed by Jerome McGann in Black Riders, the
computer language that produces the archive text and images transfers
associationJerome McGann, Black Riders: The
Visible Language of Modernism (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993)..
Editorial decisions encode interpretation in all mediums, including the
electronic medium. Each electronic representation of archival material is a new
scholarly edition, and as such is a new performance of the text. The overall
design, including background color, typeface, and spacing may seem to hold only
aesthetic value, but visual schemes in the electronic medium garner structure
and meaningSee the discussion of visual value of design in the
electronic medium in the chapter titled "Graphic Rhetoric" by Jay David
Bolter, Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the
History of Writing (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
1991), 78.. Dust jackets, which were once thrown out by collectors as
an unimportant or "expendable" part of the book according to James L. W. West
III, are currently being reviewed for their "effect on interpretation" and how
the "images become yoked to works for long periods of time"James L.
W. West III, "The Iconic Dust Jacket: Fitzgerald and Styron," in The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and Digital
Culture, ed. George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1998), 269.. Like dust jackets, the
overall design of the electronic archive has the potential to impact the users'
experience of the work. Recognizing that the new bibliographic code created by
electronic archives often reflect modern editorial decisions and interpretations
of the text will help editors of electronic archives ask the right questions
about the presentation of information. Editors, therefore, need to move toward
understanding the new bibliographic code of archive presentation in the
electronic medium, and move away from assumptions that the electronic archive
environment is static and transparent.