Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

ix
FOREWORD
“My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed <strong>in</strong>to shapes of a different k<strong>in</strong>d.”
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. R. Humphries.
Cogent and <strong>in</strong>sightful, <strong>Rome</strong> Wasn’t <strong>Digitized</strong> <strong>in</strong> a <strong>Day</strong>: Build<strong>in</strong>g a Cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure for Digital
Classicists rewards the reader with a many-faceted exploration of classical studies: the history of this
complex and multidimensional field, its development of computer-based resources and tools over the
last several decades, its current opportunities and needs <strong>in</strong> a digital era, and prospects for its future
evolution as envisioned by digital classicists. Alison Babeu rem<strong>in</strong>ds us early <strong>in</strong> her report of the
astonish<strong>in</strong>g reach of classical studies, a field that <strong>in</strong>cludes the discipl<strong>in</strong>es of history, literature,
l<strong>in</strong>guistics, art, anthropology, science, and mythology, among others, bounded by the Mycenean
culture at its most distant past and cont<strong>in</strong>u<strong>in</strong>g to the seventh century C.E. Not surpris<strong>in</strong>gly, with<strong>in</strong> this
historical compass the sources for classicists are equally complex: stone fragments, papyri, pottery
shards, the plastic arts, co<strong>in</strong>s, and some of the most breathtak<strong>in</strong>g physical structures the world has
known.
In the course of this report, the substantial ga<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong> the use of digital technologies <strong>in</strong> service to classical
studies become obvious. Over the past 40 years, remarkable resources have been built, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g largescale
text databases <strong>in</strong> a variety of languages; digital repositories for archeological data, as well as for
co<strong>in</strong>s and cuneiform tablets; and datasets of texts for paleography and epigraphical studies.
Applications that assist the scholar <strong>in</strong> morphological analysis, citation l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g, text m<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g, and
treebank construction, among others, are impressive. The challenges are also significant: there persist
problems with the <strong>in</strong>tegrity of OCR scans; the <strong>in</strong>teroperability of multimedia data that conta<strong>in</strong> texts,
images, and other forms of cultural expression; and the daunt<strong>in</strong>g magnitude of so many languages <strong>in</strong> so
many different scripts.
The <strong>in</strong>tellectual return on this <strong>in</strong>vestment <strong>in</strong> technology as a service to classical studies is equally
startl<strong>in</strong>g and complex. One of the more salient developments has been the reconceptualization of the
text. As recently as a generation ago, the “text” <strong>in</strong> classics was most often def<strong>in</strong>ed as a def<strong>in</strong>itive
edition, a pr<strong>in</strong>ted artifact that was by nature static, usually edited by a s<strong>in</strong>gle scholar, and represent<strong>in</strong>g
a compilation and collation of several extant variations. Today, through the power and fluidity of
digital tools, a text can mean someth<strong>in</strong>g very different: there may be no canonical artifact, but <strong>in</strong>stead a
dataset of its many variations, with none accorded primacy. A work of ancient literature is now more
often deeply contextualized, its transmission over time more nuanced, and its cont<strong>in</strong>uity among the
various <strong>in</strong>stantiations more accurately articulated. The performative nature of some of the great
works—the epics of Homer are a prime example—can be captured more rigorously by digital
technology, which can layer the centuries of manuscript fragments to produce a sharper understand<strong>in</strong>g
of what was emphasized <strong>in</strong> the epics over time and what passages or stories appear less important from
one era to another, afford<strong>in</strong>g new <strong>in</strong>sight <strong>in</strong>to the cultural appropriation of these fundamental
expressions of the human condition.
Achiev<strong>in</strong>g these new perspectives has required a cultural change <strong>in</strong> the classics. Scholarship <strong>in</strong> the
digital environment is more collaborative, and can <strong>in</strong>clude students as <strong>in</strong>tegral contributors to the
research effort. The connections, cont<strong>in</strong>uities, and cultural dialogue to which classical works were
subject are reflected by new teams of scholars, work<strong>in</strong>g across traditional discipl<strong>in</strong>es (which can often
<strong>in</strong>clude computer science) to develop new methodological approaches and <strong>in</strong>tellectual strategies <strong>in</strong>