ABSTRACT
In an insightful contribution of 2009, Kenneth Price reflects on what to call the ‘stuff’ we do with texts and the other things we append to them. He examines the understandings and cultural associations behind terms such as ‘edition’, ‘project’, ‘archive’, and ‘digital thematic research collection’ to conclude that none of them really represents the work we do nor the products we craft; he finally, half ironically, proposes the word ‘arsenal’. Peter Shillingsburg, on the other hand, proposed the concept of ‘knowledge site’ (2006), while Joris van Zundert and Peter Boot speak of ‘digital edition 2.0’ (2012). The title of this book sticks, perhaps unimaginatively, with ‘digital scholarly editions’. Clearly, this variety of names is a manifestation of the changing nature of the outcomes of editorial acts. In his quest for the right word, Price underlines two main characteristics that the name he is looking for should illuminate: firstly, that it is a website, a digital and physical artefact which is infinitely extensible; secondly its collaborative nature. In his proposal to use ‘arsenal’ he declares that he ‘like[s] the emphasis on workshop [included in the definition of arsenal] since these projects are so often simultaneously products and in process. I also like the stress on craft and skill, a reminder that editing is not copyist work’; he then adds how the terms imply a collaborative effort (Price, 2009, § 40). However, in spite of the very good reasons for proposing the adoption of such a term, it still does not seem adequate to the task. It belongs to totally unrelated semantic fields, the lack of recognisability of the term in such a context, and the fact that none of the meanings that, according to Price, make arsenal a good choice are immediately associated with the term itself. It is anyway fair to say that Price’s proposal was a sort of tongue-in-cheek suggestion, highlighting the inadequacies of the current terminology to describe complex and evolving objects such as the ones he had in mind.
