Keating, John and Teehan, Aja and Gallagher, Damien and O'Connor, Thomas (2010) A Digital Edition of a Spanish 18th Century Account Book: User Driven Digitisation. Jahrbuch für Computerphilologie, 10. pp. 169-18.

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Abstract

In this, part one of a two part paper, we will discuss the approach taken during the creation of a digital edition of the Alcalá Account Book manuscript. The Alcalá Project was originally proposed as a digital humanities project to mark a humanities collaboration between the University of Alcalá de Henares (UAH), Spain, and the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM). The source was to be a Spanish eighteenth century account book recording the monthly expenses of the Royal Irish College of Saint George the Martyr. In the given time-frame, the source manuscript was chosen, encoded and made available in a web based, dual language, searchable and interactive environment. More importantly, a virtual framework was developed to aid the historian in answering historically pertinent research questions that are specifically prompted by the historical object – an account book. We contend that by creating a digital edition that represents the original Alcalá Account Book manuscript and its functionality, we have provided the end-user (for example the historian) with a richer environment for performing research, and a research tool that is specifically designed to be fit for purpose. The approach is informed by the discipline of the participants, and also takes account of current best practice in humanities and digital humanities. We aim here to provide a description of that digitisation process and the methodologies we used to make design decisions. Part two, Formalisation and Encoding, will address the theoretical framework and practicalities of formalising and encoding the source.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This project was jointly funded by the Higher Education Authority’s PRTLI Cycle 4 and the National University of Ireland, Maynooth’s President’s Fund. We would like to thank the staff of the Russell Library for their continued support.
Keywords:	Digital Editions; Alcalá Account Book; An Foras Feasa; User Driven Digitisation; Alcalá Project;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Computer Science
Item ID:	2650
Depositing User:	CS Editor
Date Deposited:	18 Aug 2011 11:57
Journal or Publication Title:	Jahrbuch für Computerphilologie
Publisher:	Mentis verlag
Refereed:	Yes
Funders:	Higher Education Authority, Ireland, President’s Fund, National University of Ireland
URI:	http://www.mentis.de/?id=00000073&articl...
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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