Oxford's Electronic Enlightenment FAQ

See the University of Oxford's Electronic Enlightenment <http://www.e-enlightenment.com/>

The author provides this FAQ:

EE Information and Answers from Dr. McNamee: July 2008

1) For letters that aren’t in English and for which a translation was not given in the critical edition, will you be commissioning any translations?

We have the technical mechanism for the inclusion of translations, and I will encourage that to take place, eliciting collaborative involvement of our academic user community. We (EE) have already commissioned translations of Latin letters in the Edmond Halley correspondence, which have never previously been translated (at least for publication); these translations will be added before the end of 2008.

Eventually, I hope to encourage English versions of French, German, Italian, Latin, etc.; but ALSO French, German, Italian, etc. translations of English too.

2) Do you have a rough idea of how many non-English letters don’t have accompanying translations? (e.g. 30%.....40%...etc.)

Probably over 80% of non-English letters don't yet have English translations... but then, to being with, this is a scholarly resource (in one of the letters there is a lengthy quotation of an Ancient Greek verse, in the midst of which the editor of the letter puts "[sic]" with no explanation -- i.e., he expects the reader to understand the error in the transcription of the Greek without being told!

3) Are the links to the DNB subscription-sensitive, or will everyone see them, regardless of whether or not they have a DNB sub?

We show the link to everyone, but they only see results if they have a subscription.

4) Do the biographies all come from the critical editions, or are some pulled from elsewhere?

The biographies in EE are drawn from (i) the critical editions themselves, where they exist, supplemented by (ii) recognized biographical sources. These are listed here: http://www.e-enlightenment.com/services/reference/biographies.html

5) The cameo images found on each biography page – are these placeholders for future images of the persons themselves, or…?

Exactly, the cameos are place-holders for future portraits. I'm in extended negotiation with the National Portrait Gallery, London (and will include that in Washington when we have more US content next year), for a portrait with direct link to the person-specific section on the Gallery website.

6) Looking past the new content going in at the end of 2008, do we have any idea of the approximate number/amount of content that will be going in with each update?

Yes, we will update at the end of December and the end of June uploading 4000 letters each time. We will also provide one major technical update each year, probably applied at the end of June.

7) I remembered you mentioning that you were unable to load the original manuscript images for launch – is this now planned for the December update?

At this moment we do not have manuscript images for more than a handful of letters -- our sources are the best critical/scholarly editions available, not the archives holding the original documents. We will, during 2009, be uploading those images we do have though the number will be relatively small and I wouldn't want this to take too high a position yet. However, we are in close discussion with several of the archives holding major quantities of the original letters and this will be one of our project developments going forward. Because of the interest this will create, and the investment it will require, we are only saying at this time that "we are working to provide such images at some time in the future".

8) Any ideas as to the percentage of letters on the site where the original is in a language other than English?

-- language breakdown at launch:

• French 56%
• English 43%
• other 1%

-- the 'other' category consists of the following number of actual documents (these are NOT percentages):

• Greek 2
• Russian 7
• Spanish 9
• Portuguese 12
• Italian 20
• Latin 119
  

By the end of 2009 English and French will comprise approx. 44% each, Italian approx. 10%, German approx. 1%, and the others the remaining 1%.

Not all documents are available in translation (and I include English in this as we hope to translate those letters into other languages one day!). But we have translations for most of the documents under the "other" category listed above -- some translations never before available (done for us/by us).

9) Will the “day of the week” indication on the letters that we saw in one of the earlier iterations be returning at some point?

Yes, we will restore this calculation within the 2008/2009 cycle.

10) Any plans to link to the ANB alongside the DNB?

Yes, we would like to link to the ANB, especially from 2009 as we begin to include significant numbers of American correspondents.