Appendix IV

Basic Steps in Documentary Editing: Before and After Computerization

Mary-Jo Kline

I. Collection of source materials

A. Identification of possible owner-repositories of printed or manuscript sources that may have some claim on the edition's attention

1. Electronic databases such as ArchivesUSA expedite this phase of the process considerably

B. Contact with repositories (and private collectors, specialized journals) to seek information and/or photocopies of sources

1. Even the advent of the word-processor made the generation of "Snail-mail" form inquiries far simpler. E-mail can (if used judiciously) expedite the matter further

2. Electronic "lists" and chat groups are now (or should now be) added to the venues in which a project's existence and interests are "advertised."

II. Processing and cataloguing of source materials

A. "Control files" that index items by accession number, author, date, location of original, etc.

1. This task, traditionally performed with entries typed on multiple copies of a slip to provide a number of slips for filing in several series, is done with a database at new projects

2. labels for folders holding photocopies, once lettered by hand, are now generated by the database that holds the project's control files

III. Selection of materials for the edition. While databases can ease retrieval of photocopies, human intelligence and judgment remain the basis for decisions here.

IV. Transcription of source documents for the edition.

A. Until the early 1980s, this task was performed on typewriters. Word processing equipment is now used universally, and projects using databases for 'Control" can link transcriptions automatically to all information regarding the source texts' locations, inscriptional form, etc.

B. Recording textual details. Until the advent of computerized typesetting, many projects eschewed literal methods of text publication because of the expense of reproducing such elements as canceled type, raised characters, etc. Today, documentary and textual editors have become, in effect, their own typesetters, producing text files as simple or complicated as they wish in machine-readable form. Textual decisions now are (or should be) more purely a function of the needs of the documents and the audiences they serve rather than being dependent upon the willingness of publishers to make substantial investments in hand set type and special characters.

V. Annotation

A. Traditionally, editors kept a running "annotational index" as a guide to what subjects or persons had been explained or identified in the course of editing a publishing unit (one volume or more published at the same time and using a single index). As both texts and notes-in-process are now in machine-readable form, editors can be more imaginative and flexible, relying in part on keyword searches and in part on "note" codes to determine the history of a unit's annotation.

B. Computer methods (even at the word processor level) have eased the task of editors who must maintain standard usage for short titles of sources, etc.

C. Web publication of some sources are beginning to be used by editors for research purposes

D. Still, present electronic documentary editions (such as the Lincoln Legal Practice) are largely image publications, where editorially supplied text is generally confined to access materials. We have, as yet, no samples of the different forms and patterns that contextual annotation can or should take in an electronic edition aiming for access equivalent to a back of book index.

VI. Converting text transcriptions and notes to galleys and page proofs

A. "Book" documentary editors have moved far behind their experience 50 years ago when they supplied typed copy to publishers whose editors reviewed the pages carefully before they were sent on to be set in hot type, with the succeeding galleys and pages demanding scrupulous proofreading at each stage.

B. Typically, the editor of a modern letterpress edition of annotated documents produces machine-readable texts and notes with printing codes embedded according to design standards worked out with the publisher. The "publisher" transmits those codes to someone (often an outside contractor) who produces the modern equivalent of galleys -- or, more and more frequently, generates page proof without the intermediate step of galleys.

VII. Indexing.

A. Long before computers, all long-term, multi-volume editorial projects developed procedures for indexing that included thesauri of accepted index terms (some sophisticated, some crude), rules for treatment of problems encountered routinely from volume to volume, patterns of cross-reference, etc. These survive in one form or another.

B. For twenty years, some editors have employed one form or another of the CINDEX computerized indexing tool designed for documentary series. This tool, however, was designed for PRINT editions, and no plans are under way for modifications that might be helpful in electronic editions.

C. The use of word-processing equipment for the maintenance of in-process "annotational indexes" has been exploited by some (but not all) editors to facilitate the preparation of traditional back-of-book indexes, but no one has yet explored the possibility that the work in artificial intelligence can ease the task of creating such traditional access tools by drawing on the existing ontological resources in multi-volume index entries for the same series, much less looking ahead to the way that artificial intelligence research might be used in providing access for Web-based, not paper-based documentary editions.

VIII. "Publication" --- whatever that means.

A. The close partnership between documentary editors and their publishers has been eroded. Increasingly, the publishing house's major contribution is in binding the pages generated by the editorial project's coded texts and notes and providing for distribution, marketing, and sales.

B. Internet opportunities for publication and distribution are only now being investigated. And, as this conference has shown, successful Internet publication may well depend on providing effective intellectual access to what is offered.