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

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always been a “data-<strong>in</strong>tensive” enterprise and that all the reference works and critical editions created
by classicists were well suited to an electronic environment. He argued that the needs of classicists <strong>in</strong>
2004 were not so different from those of scholars <strong>in</strong> other discipl<strong>in</strong>es, and that classicists would need
to learn to adapt the tools of other discipl<strong>in</strong>es.
There should not be a history of classics and the computer, for the needs of classicists are
simply not so dist<strong>in</strong>ctive as to warrant a separate “<strong>in</strong>formatics.” Discipl<strong>in</strong>ary specialists
learn<strong>in</strong>g the strengths and weaknesses have, <strong>in</strong> the author's experience, a strong tendency to
exaggerate the extent to which their problems are unique and to call for a specialized, doma<strong>in</strong>specific
<strong>in</strong>frastructure and approach (Crane 2004).
While Melissa Terras has recently agreed with Crane’s call for classicists to work <strong>in</strong> an
<strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary manner and adapt the computational advances and <strong>in</strong>frastructure from other
discipl<strong>in</strong>es, she also noted how logistical and personal issues of discipl<strong>in</strong>arity need to be considered
when pursu<strong>in</strong>g cross-discipl<strong>in</strong>ary work (Terras 2010), add<strong>in</strong>g that these issues have received little
research. 13 Discipl<strong>in</strong>arity has presented digital classicists with two key challenges, Terras argued. The
first challenge is the difficulty of “forg<strong>in</strong>g an identity and ga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g recognition” for their work with<strong>in</strong>
the traditional discipl<strong>in</strong>e of classics; the second, faced by scholars who go beyond traditional classics,
is the difficulty <strong>in</strong> engag<strong>in</strong>g with experts <strong>in</strong> various computer science discipl<strong>in</strong>es:
Classicists us<strong>in</strong>g digital technologies <strong>in</strong> their research are regularly at the forefront of research
<strong>in</strong> digital humanities, given the range of primary and secondary sources consulted and the array
of tools and techniques necessary to <strong>in</strong>terrogate them. However, to adopt new and develop<strong>in</strong>g
techniques, and to adopt and adapt emergent technologies, the Digital Classicist has to work <strong>in</strong>
the <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary space between Classics and comput<strong>in</strong>g science (Terras 2010, 178).
Two projects that Terras believed illustrated the <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary vision necessary to pursue successful
work <strong>in</strong> digital classics were eSAD and VERA, both of which require large-scale <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary
teams to conduct their work.
Balanc<strong>in</strong>g the needs of <strong>in</strong>dividual discipl<strong>in</strong>es such as classics with<strong>in</strong> a larger scholarly
cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure that is still useful across discipl<strong>in</strong>es is a challenge echoed by many humanities
cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure projects, and will be discussed later <strong>in</strong> this report. Before mov<strong>in</strong>g to questions of
<strong>in</strong>frastructure, whether for classics or for the humanities as a whole, however, the report looks at some
large multidiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary classical digital libraries, the services they provide, and the state of the art <strong>in</strong>
potential services they might develop.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY CLASSICAL DIGITAL LIBRARIES: ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES
AND SERVICES
The extensive <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> the language, literature, and history of the ancient world is evidenced by the
large number of resources available onl<strong>in</strong>e. Digital collections of classical texts (particularly <strong>in</strong> Greek
and Lat<strong>in</strong>) abound onl<strong>in</strong>e and have been created both by enthusiasts and by academics. For Lat<strong>in</strong>, some
of the larger collections are Corpus Scriptorum Lat<strong>in</strong>orum, IntraText, Lacus Curtius, and the Lat<strong>in</strong>
Library; for Lat<strong>in</strong> and Greek, there is the Bibliotheca Augustana and the Internet Classics Archive; and
13 Terras cites Siemens (2009) as one of the few research articles <strong>in</strong> this area.