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

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reviewed with<strong>in</strong>, the world of peer reviewed, cited, traceable, and replicable scholarship.”
Consequently, all versions (with their URLs) of an <strong>in</strong>scription must be ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed even if changes or
corrections are made, <strong>in</strong> case a scholar has cited an earlier version of an <strong>in</strong>scription. For these reasons,
as well as the challenges of project-based fund<strong>in</strong>g, the authors decided to create ALA 2004 and IAph
2007 not as “liv<strong>in</strong>g databases” but as more traditional “one-off publications.”
The f<strong>in</strong>al feature analyzed by Bodard, the ability of electronic publication to support iterative research
and transparency, was also previously discussed by this author and Garcés (2009) <strong>in</strong> terms of digital
editions. The availability of source files and code makes research more replicable by other scholars
because it provides access to primary source data; allows other scholars to exam<strong>in</strong>e the digital
processes, markup, and techniques used to create the collection; and allows them to use their own
algorithms and tools to create new digital editions. Such transparency is essential to all scholarly
research, and Bodard concludes that:
Even more central to the research process, however, is the fact that a true digital project is not
merely the result of traditional classical research that is at the last m<strong>in</strong>ute converted to
electronic form and made available onl<strong>in</strong>e. Rather the XML files (<strong>in</strong> the case of Inscriptions of
Aphrodisias and other EpiDoc projects, other data models for other types of project) that lie
beh<strong>in</strong>d the publication, are the direct result of, and primary tools for, the academic research
itself. These files conta<strong>in</strong> the marked-up data, Greek or Lat<strong>in</strong> texts, descriptions, editorial
commentary and argumentation, references and metadata, all <strong>in</strong> mach<strong>in</strong>e-readable and
actionable form. It is this s<strong>in</strong>gle, structured collection of source data which is taken by the
mach<strong>in</strong>e process and run through a series of XSLT stylesheets which generate, <strong>in</strong> turn, the web
presentations of <strong>in</strong>dividual or groups of <strong>in</strong>scriptions, the contextual tables of contents, <strong>in</strong>dices,
concordances, prosopographical and onomastic tables, and so forth (Bodard 2008).
Thus, the electronic files and source code that have been created for this publication are every bit as
important as, if not more important than, the website created from them.
One project that is closely related both to ALA 2004 and to IAph 2007 is the Inscriptions of Roman
Tripolitania (IRT 2009). 358 IRT 2009 is the enhanced electronic reissue of a publication that first
appeared <strong>in</strong> 1952. Created by Gabriel Bodard and Charlotte Roueché, it is hosted by K<strong>in</strong>g’s College
London. Electronic publication has allowed for the <strong>in</strong>clusion of the full photographic record of the
orig<strong>in</strong>al pr<strong>in</strong>t publication and the l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g of the <strong>in</strong>scriptions to maps and gazetteers. As with IAph
2007, <strong>in</strong>dividual EpiDoc XML files and an entire XML repository of <strong>in</strong>scriptions can be
downloaded. 359 There are a variety of ways to access the <strong>in</strong>scriptions. The chapters of the pr<strong>in</strong>t
publication have been made available onl<strong>in</strong>e as text files with hyperl<strong>in</strong>ks to the relevant <strong>in</strong>scriptions. In
addition, as with IAph 2007, various tables of contents (locations, dates, text categories, monument
types) and <strong>in</strong>dexes (Lat<strong>in</strong> words, Greek words, fragments of text, personal names, and other features)
provide alternative means of access to the <strong>in</strong>scriptions. The website notes that <strong>in</strong>dexes to this edition
were generated from the texts themselves and thus differ from those of the pr<strong>in</strong>t edition. Each
<strong>in</strong>scription record is similar to those <strong>in</strong> IAph 2007, with one key difference: many of the records <strong>in</strong> IRT
have “f<strong>in</strong>dspots” that have been l<strong>in</strong>ked to maps. 360 A map can be used to browse the collection of
<strong>in</strong>scriptions with l<strong>in</strong>ks provided to <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>scription records. Each <strong>in</strong>scription also has a citable
and permanent URL.
358 http://irt.kcl.ac.uk/irt2009/<strong>in</strong>dex.html
359 http://irt.kcl.ac.uk/irt2009/<strong>in</strong>scr/xmlrepo.html
360 For example, the map for the f<strong>in</strong>dspot “Sirtica,” http://irt.kcl.ac.uk/irt2009/maps/<strong>in</strong>dex.htmlll=31.2,16.5&z=10