From Linear to Open Reading: Adapting “Parcours numeriques” for Scholarly Editions

MLA 2018 Conference, New York

January 5, 2018

MLA session “The Function of the Print Scholarly Edition at the Present Time”, organized by the Committee on Scholarly Editions, and chaired by Paul B. Armstrong.

Launched in 2014, the series ‘Parcours numériques‘ was an attempt to offer an alternative publishing model that combined print and electronic publishing, as well as promoting open access while still maintaining a range of funding revenues to be economically sustainable. The idea was to think of new ways to have two different yet complimentary versions of the same book. The print version (also available in a homothetic version in PDF or ePub) would be a linear, short essay, with minimal or ideally no scholarly apparatus (notes, images, etc) present. The electronic version would contain the original text with not only “standard” supplementary materials one would have expected in the print version but everything that was unique to a web-based environment, namely the opportunity to include videos, audio commentaries, links to external sites, etc. With seven books now published, and three more forthcoming in 2017, it is fair to say that my co-series editor, Marcello Vitali-Rosati, and I have successfully demonstrated to our readers and the press the value of such a series.

In my talk, I will discuss the ways I am now exporting this publishing model to scholarly editions, based not only on my experience with the series but also my own textual editorial experience that precededed it, starting with my role as general editor of The Selected Writings of Leigh Hunt (Pickering & Chatto, 2003). I will suggest the ways scholarly editions can continue to exist in print with new electronic features built not only in an online version but also into the print version.

This content has been updated on August 20, 2017 at 11 h 05 min.