EarlyPrint Curation
I had a lot of fun doing the transcription part of the EasyPrint activities! I have always been fond of puzzle-like activities, so this was right up my alley. My assigned text was “The lattre examinacyon of Anne Askewe latelye martyred in Smythfelde, by the wycked Synagoge of Antichrist, with the Elucydacyon of Iohan Bale.” One of my biggest struggles for the transcription was actually keeping myself from using context to deduce what letters would likely be found in the missing parts of the transcription. Other than this, what made figuring out the letters most difficult was just what I believe to be the bleeding of the ink in writing the letters. I was pretty impressed by the EarlyPrint website itself and especially the way that it encourages and is conducive to collaboration with and contribution from the general public. However, this leads me to a couple concerns that I have with the digital humanities. Digital humanities make public access much easier which is great, but can also lead to the loss of accuracy and truthfulness in the information available digitally. In this case, someone who is unqualified for transcribing old manuscripts could contribute to the website’s data and propagate false information. Another concern is that of the abundance of information. The EarlyPrint activities made me realize how many versions of manuscripts and transcriptions are available digitally as well as physically. At what point can we no longer preserve the exact information contained in all these texts?
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