[open-literature] www.openliterature.org

Tue Jul 5 17:04:25 UTC 2011

Hi James,

Hope that OKCon was good. Sorry couldn't make it but deadlines at work, 
and some unexpected 'surprises', meant that I'd cancelled all hopes of 
going this year.

I've been thinking about this slightly more off than on but it is a 
necessary step. The projects seems slightly disparate and there ought to 
be a point of reference.

Having a shared blog would help give the community some cohesion and a 
focal point for news and updates. It might be good to have the Open 
Shakespeare trac (which I'm pretty sure now has Correspondence and 
Milton tasks (I'm slightly behind schedule on some of those then :-[ )) 
linked off to make it a more central resource. I know that Shakespeare 
is the biggest project but perhaps we could come up with a  more generic 
image or even logo for the openliterature site?

I don't know if you agree but perhaps each project could have a page on 
the wiki as an overview / introduction as well as a piece about 
literature and openness.

Open Milton needs an overhaul. I'm not sure that we've really touched it 
since the launch on his 400th birthday and it is looking a bit tired 
now. I think that the Xapian search might have been the last bit of 
work. It is linked to the Shakespeare codebase so I'd to refresh my 
memory of how it works so that any changes do not affect the Shakespeare 
code. I probably need around a day to complete but don't have one until 
later this month.

I'm working on some visualisations for Open Correspondence with  a view 
to trying to complete the correspondent links and update the site in 
general. It could do with annotating as well as with Milton. It is 
either the chicken or the egg to the existing data in response to the 
general comment that we need tools as well as data.

Perhaps we could also help Jack Leigh (sorry, _really_ belated hello and 
welcome to the list) if he would still like to move his Celtic work onto 
pages on the wiki (if he and  the list agrees) and the linked page 
licences allow (are the Cambridge links open as in OKD compliant?)?

We might also start linking to useful tools, like the annotater, off a 
tools page on the wiki? Something that may be worth thinking aloud about 
on the list would be what tools would be useful and can we either find 
them under suitable licenses or think about developing them or 
encouraging their being relicensed?

I think I might have raised more questions than answers here. Sorry, 
stream of consciousness.

Best,

Iain

On 05/07/2011 16:47, James Harriman-Smith wrote:
> Afternoon everyone,
>
> Thanks to all those who replied to my question about subjective 
> annotations.
>
> I now have a new query, particularly aimed at @Iain Emsley. I am 
> thinking about building an 'open literature' website, linking together 
> Open Shakespeare, Open Milton and Open Correspondence; before I do so, 
> I would like to know what form you think this should take?
>
> At the moment I imagine just links to each separate project, a short 
> overview of open literature (i.e. how openness applies to literature 
> and humanities), and maybe a dedicated blog collating news from all 
> three efforts, as well as something surfacing recent annotations on 
> Shaks/Milton and maybe the letters too: it certainly would be 
> interesting to have people enrich dickens' letters with their own 
> comments...
>
> Do let me know what you think, as indeed should anyone else interested 
> on this list,
>
> James
>
>