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

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elements of an apparatus criticus and <strong>in</strong>cludes only a s<strong>in</strong>gle edition of each text. These
limitations have led to serious criticism, particularly where there is dispute over the version
used by the TLG (Ruhleder 1995).
Ruhleder also noted that while the corpus may have been broadened <strong>in</strong> one sense, it is also far
shallower as critical <strong>in</strong>formation has been “decoupled” from the texts. Similar criticism of the TLG has
also been offered more recently by Notis Toufexis:
In the absence of detailed contextualization <strong>in</strong>formation accompany<strong>in</strong>g the onl<strong>in</strong>e version of
each text, the user who wishes to check the reliability of a given edition (if, for <strong>in</strong>stance, it uses
all extant manuscripts of a text or not) has to refer to the pr<strong>in</strong>ted edition or other handbooks.
The same applies to any attempt to put search results obta<strong>in</strong>ed by the TLG with<strong>in</strong> the wider
context of a literary genre or a historical period. The TLG assumes <strong>in</strong> a sense that its users have
a broad knowledge of Greek literature and language of all historical periods and are capable of
contextualiz<strong>in</strong>g each search result on their own (Toufexis 2010, 110).
Criticisms such as these have been aimed at the TLG s<strong>in</strong>ce its found<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the 1970s, and project
founder Theodore Brunner has also acknowledged that access to the TLG does not exempt scholars
from check<strong>in</strong>g pr<strong>in</strong>ted editions of classical texts for the apparatus criticus (Brunner 1987). Brunner
cited both the desire to enter as many texts as possible and the relatively high costs of data entry (10
cents a word <strong>in</strong> 1987) as reasons for the approach the TLG chose to take.
In addition to the possible lack of contextual or critical <strong>in</strong>formation, many classicists whom Ruhleder
<strong>in</strong>terviewed were concerned with the authority that was afforded to texts <strong>in</strong> the TLG, ow<strong>in</strong>g to their
electronic nature. Ruhleder hypothesized that the TLG had affected the work of classicists <strong>in</strong> terms of
(1) the beliefs and expectations they had of the materials with which they worked, (2) the nature of
their skill sets and expertise, and (3) the <strong>in</strong>frastructure of their discipl<strong>in</strong>e. In terms of beliefs regard<strong>in</strong>g
materials, classicists had previously assumed ga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g familiarity with a corpus was a life’s work and
happened only through constant read<strong>in</strong>g and reread<strong>in</strong>g of the text and that add<strong>in</strong>g to that corpus was a
collaborative act.
Ease of search<strong>in</strong>g and f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g texts <strong>in</strong> the TLG, Ruhleder proposed, left scholars free to pursue other
work such as scholarly tool build<strong>in</strong>g or the creation of electronic texts. But this process was not
without its problems:
Of course, tool build<strong>in</strong>g is a form of scholarly work <strong>in</strong> itself, and databanks and electronic texts
are a form of “scholarly production.” However, this k<strong>in</strong>d of activity has traditionally ranked
low; develop<strong>in</strong>g an <strong>in</strong>dex or a concordance ranks above develop<strong>in</strong>g teach<strong>in</strong>g materials, but
below writ<strong>in</strong>g articles, books, commentaries and produc<strong>in</strong>g new textual editions. Develop<strong>in</strong>g
computer-based tools is not even on the list (Ruhleder 1995).
The challenge of evaluat<strong>in</strong>g scholarly work <strong>in</strong> digital classics, and <strong>in</strong>deed all of digital humanities, as
well as the unwill<strong>in</strong>gness of many traditional tenure evaluations to consider digital scholarship, are
themes that are seen throughout the literature.
The second major change identified by Ruhleder, that of shift<strong>in</strong>g skill sets and expertise, considered
how technical expertise was be<strong>in</strong>g substituted for experience ga<strong>in</strong>ed over time, and how classicists
<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly needed more-sophisticated technical knowledge to understand the limitations of tools such
as the TLG. The third major change, that of challenges to discipl<strong>in</strong>ary <strong>in</strong>frastructure, Ruhleder used to