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

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better set the <strong>in</strong>scriptions <strong>in</strong> their archaeological context. The scale of digital publish<strong>in</strong>g also allowed
for the <strong>in</strong>clusion of far more <strong>in</strong>terpretative material and for the explanation and expansion of text that
had once needed to be abbreviated by epigraphists and papyrologists for pr<strong>in</strong>t publication:
… once the restrictions of a page limit are removed this abbreviated text can be expanded,
conventions can be glossed, descriptions of comments can be repeated where they are relevant,
and cross-references can be made more self-explanatory. This is not necessarily to reject
generations of scholarship and academic jargon, which is familiar to practitioners of our
discipl<strong>in</strong>es and serves a useful function of communication <strong>in</strong> addition to space-sav<strong>in</strong>g. Rather,
by expand<strong>in</strong>g, expla<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g, and illustrat<strong>in</strong>g these conventional sigla and abbreviations we are
enhanc<strong>in</strong>g our scholarly publication by mak<strong>in</strong>g it more accessible to outsider (Bodard 2008).
Mak<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>scriptions more accessible to a general audience is perhaps one of the greatest benefits to
publish<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>scriptions onl<strong>in</strong>e.
The third feature listed by Bodard was media, and <strong>in</strong> addition to the far larger number of photographs,
Bodard suggested that digital reconstruction of monuments with <strong>in</strong>scriptions could prove very useful.
In addition, <strong>in</strong>creased levels of geographical access can now be provided through digitiz<strong>in</strong>g maps and
plans that can then be hyperl<strong>in</strong>ked to editions of <strong>in</strong>scriptions. One potential avenue for exploration
Bodard outl<strong>in</strong>ed would be the use of a global mapp<strong>in</strong>g API 356 such as that provided by Google
Maps 357 “to plot not only f<strong>in</strong>dspots and ancient and modern locations of f<strong>in</strong>ds, but also places and
other geographical entities named or implied <strong>in</strong> the texts themselves” (Bodard 2008). Elliott and
Gillies (2009a) and Jeffrey et al. (2009a) have also suggested the utility of us<strong>in</strong>g modern mapp<strong>in</strong>g
technology such as GIS and historical named-entity recognition techniques to provide better access to
historical materials <strong>in</strong> archaeology and classical geography.
Perhaps the most significant impact of electronic publication on <strong>in</strong>scriptions, Bodard argues, is through
his fourth feature, hypertext, with its myriad possibilities of support<strong>in</strong>g sophisticated l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g and
dynamic referenc<strong>in</strong>g. Internal hyperl<strong>in</strong>ks with<strong>in</strong> a publication, as Bodard noted, enabled mak<strong>in</strong>g
stronger l<strong>in</strong>ks between data, narrative commentary, and other support<strong>in</strong>g materials. New ways of
navigat<strong>in</strong>g the material become available as a user can go from a narrative commentary directly to an
<strong>in</strong>scription, or from an <strong>in</strong>scription of <strong>in</strong>terest directly to commentary. External hyperl<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g to other
projects (such as other <strong>in</strong>scription collections and secondary reference works) also offers powerful
possibilities. Another important aspect of hyperl<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g, Bodard underscored, was the potential of
dynamic l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g or “live hypertext shar<strong>in</strong>g.” As both InsAph 2007 and ALA 2004 provide
downloadable EpiDoc XML files for the <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>scriptions and the entire corpus and also provide
“transparent and predictable URLs for dynamic l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g” (Bodard 2008), other projects can easily l<strong>in</strong>k
to <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>scriptions or download the entire corpus for reuse. As far as Bodard knew, no other
projects had yet made reuse of any of the EpiDoc files available.
The fifth feature listed by Bodard, the ability to easily update data, was also briefly discussed by
Roueché. Although the possibility of <strong>in</strong>stantaneous updat<strong>in</strong>g can be very useful, Bodard proposed that
some electronic publications may need to be kept “static” not only because of the burden on the author
but also because of the need for a stable and citable publication “that has to <strong>in</strong>teract with, and be
356 An API, short for “Application Programm<strong>in</strong>g Interface” is a “set of rout<strong>in</strong>es, protocols, and tools for build<strong>in</strong>g software applications”
(http://webopedia.com/TERM/A/API.html). Accord<strong>in</strong>g to Webopedia, a “good API makes it easier to develop a program by provid<strong>in</strong>g all the build<strong>in</strong>g
blocks.” Programmers can then use these “build<strong>in</strong>g blocks” to more easily write applications that are consistent with a particular operat<strong>in</strong>g environment or
software program.
357 http://code.google.com/apis/maps/<strong>in</strong>dex.html