0.26 Underpinnings of the social edition  (Page 4/32)

Lexicographers [need the RKB] in order to revise historical dictionaries (the Oxford English Dictionary , for example, is based on citation slips, not on the original texts). Literary critics need it, because the RKB will reveal connections among Renaissance works, new characteristics, and nuances of meaning that only a lifetime of directed reading could hope to provide. Historians need the RKB, because it will let them move easily, for example, from biography to textual information. The same may be said of scholars in linguistics, Reformation theology, humanistic philosophy, rhetoric, and socio-cultural studies, among others. (1990: 2)

The need for such a knowledgebase was (and is) clear. Since each of its individual components was deemed “critical to Renaissance scholarship,” and because the RKB intended to “permit each potentially to shed light on all the others,” the group behind the RKB felt that “the whole” was “likely to be far greater than the sum of its already-important parts” (1990: 2).

Recommendations following the initiative’s proposal suggested a positive path, drawing attention to the merit of the approach and suggesting further ways to bring about the creation of this resource to meet the research needs of an even larger group of Renaissance scholars. Many of the scholars involved persevered, organizing an open meeting on the RKB at the 1991 ACH/ALLC Conference in Tempe to determine the next course of action. Also present at that session were Eric Calaluca (Chadwyck-Healey), Mark Rooks (InteLex), and Patricia Murphy, all of whom proposed to digitize large quantities of primary materials from the English Renaissance.

From here, the RKB project as originally conceived took new (and largely unforeseen) directions. Chadwyck-Healey was to transcribe books from the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature and publish various full-text databases now combined as Literature Online . InteLex was to publish its Past Masters series of full-text humanities databases, first on floppy disk and CD-ROM and now web-based. Murphy’s project to scan and transcribe large numbers of books in the Short-Title Catalogue to machine-readable form was taken up by Early English Books Online and later the Text Creation Partnership . In the decade since the scholars behind the RKB project first identified the need for a knowledgebase of Renaissance materials, its essential components and methodology have been outlined (Lancashire 1992). Moreover, considerable related work was soon to follow, some by the principals of the RKB project and much by those beyond it, such as R. S. Bear ( Renascence Editions ), Michael Best ( Internet Shakespeare Editions ), Gregory Crane ( Perseus Digital Library ), Patricia Fumerton ( English Broadside Ballad Archive ), Ian Lancashire ( Lexicons of Early Modern English ), and Greg Waite ( Textbase of Early Tudor English ); by commercial publishers such as Adam Matthew Digital ( Defining Gender, 1450–1910 ; Empire Online ; Leeds Literary Manuscripts ; Perdita Manuscripts ; Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490–2007 ; Virginia Company Archives ), Chadwyck-Healey ( Literature Online ), and Gale ( British Literary Manuscripts Online, c.1660–c.1900 ; State Papers Online, 1509–1714 ), and by consortia such as Early English Books Online–Text Creation Partnership (University of Michigan, Oxford University, the Council of Library and Information Resources, and ProQuest) and Orlando (Cambridge University Press and University of Alberta).