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

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were exceptionally diverse, as were the types of resources be<strong>in</strong>g digitized, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g catalogs and
bibliographies, prosopographical databases, manuscript images, papyri, <strong>in</strong>scriptions, artifacts, textual
resources, l<strong>in</strong>e draw<strong>in</strong>gs, CAD and VR models of architectural structures, and spatial data sets. This
wide variety of resources, Speck noted, reflected the multidiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary nature of classics. He also
po<strong>in</strong>ted out that many scholars who were <strong>in</strong>terviewed “suggested that ICT <strong>in</strong> general, and hypertext
and hypermedia technology <strong>in</strong> particular, are beneficial to CAH 640 research, s<strong>in</strong>ce it enables the
<strong>in</strong>tegration of textual, archaeology and historical sources and approaches <strong>in</strong>to one research project.”
This ability of the digital medium to re<strong>in</strong>tegrate the textual and material record and present a more
sophisticated approach to explor<strong>in</strong>g the ancient world was valued by many digital classics projects.
Speck also found that the sophistication of computational methods used <strong>in</strong> projects varied greatly:
For a large proportion of projects the digital component is clearly subsidiary to the wider
research question and the computational methods employed are straight-forward; however, a
significant m<strong>in</strong>ority of projects employs and devises advanced computational methods
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g multi-spectral imag<strong>in</strong>g techniques, advanced 3-d modell<strong>in</strong>g methods, and the
development of generic and re-usable mark up schemes (Speck 2005).
A similar level of vary<strong>in</strong>g computational complexity was found <strong>in</strong> this project’s survey of digital
resources <strong>in</strong> classics. While some projects focused on us<strong>in</strong>g digital tools to better explore traditional
questions, others were develop<strong>in</strong>g state-of-the-art tools to explore new questions.
Interest<strong>in</strong>gly, Speck articulated that attempt<strong>in</strong>g to develop a s<strong>in</strong>gle subject center to meet the needs of
classics and ancient history would likely fail to address both the <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary nature of the field
and that most of the services requested of the AHDS were both quite specific and advanced.
Nonetheless, the report did offer six recommendations for support<strong>in</strong>g the needs of digital classics
research: (1) “the development and promotion of generic methods and standards” such as TEI and
EpiDoc; (2) the “<strong>in</strong>tegration and l<strong>in</strong>kage of exist<strong>in</strong>g resources and cross-search<strong>in</strong>g”; (3) the
development of VREs; (4) the “shar<strong>in</strong>g of expertise, outcomes and methodologies and l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g of
projects”; (5) the need for national and <strong>in</strong>ternational fund<strong>in</strong>g; and (6) “<strong>in</strong>formation on encod<strong>in</strong>g and
display of non-Lat<strong>in</strong> script.” Of all these recommendations, many scholars stated that the ma<strong>in</strong>
challenge would be “<strong>in</strong> l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g disparate collections of different data types to enable powerful crosssearch<strong>in</strong>g.”
In fact, a variety of projects have evolved to address just these issues such as Concordia,
LaQuAT, and Interedition, all of which will be discussed <strong>in</strong> greater detail <strong>in</strong> the next section.
Look<strong>in</strong>g Forward: Classics Cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure, Themes, and Requirements <strong>in</strong> 2010
While the AHDS study of 2005 took a fairly broad approach to def<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the needs of digital classics
projects, three recent articles <strong>in</strong> a special issue of the Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) that was
dedicated to the theme “Chang<strong>in</strong>g the Center of Gravity: Transform<strong>in</strong>g Classical Studies Through
Cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure” have taken an even more expansive approach to the question of develop<strong>in</strong>g a
cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure for digital classics, classics, and the humanities as a whole. While Crane, Seales,
and Terras (2009) looked at the cyber<strong>in</strong>frastructure requirements for classical philology as a means of
explor<strong>in</strong>g larger issues of digital classics, Crane et al. (2009a) summarized the challenges fac<strong>in</strong>g
classical studies <strong>in</strong> the million-book libraries be<strong>in</strong>g created by mass-digitization projects, and
Blackwell and Crane 2009 offered a conclusion to this special issue and an overview of its larger
640 This acronym stands for Classics and Ancient History.