Project Management

Kretschmer, Bently, Bates and Gerrard all attended an AHRC advisory meeting ‘Developing a Digitisation Project’ at King’s College, London on 27th October 2005. The AHRC sensibly demands certain standards on data preservation and interoperability, with a strong preference for coding in XML. The meeting also provided useful advice on workflow and risk management, as well as contacts with other projects.

Deazley and Kawohl were part of the project from the start as named National Editors. Rideau and Kostylo were appointed in December 2005. We held a meeting of all national editors on December 14th and 15th 2005 in Cambridge. We discussed existing projects, their advantages and disadvantages; criteria for selection, processes of reproduction, costs of reproduction, issues of negotiation, types of commentary. The National editors were asked to submit samples of documents in various formats and resolutions (microfilm; digital imaging; photocopy) by 31 Jan 2006. They were also asked to compile a draft list of 50 documents, with one sentence description of each item, and likely location of source.

Formally, the national editor editors began their Fellowships on 1 March 2006. A second meeting of all national editors’ meeting took place around that time to produce a pilot of documents in facsimile, transcription, translation with commentary, setting the technical standards for the whole project. Further meetings have taken place in January, May and September 2007.

From L-R: Ronan Deazley, Oren Bracha, Lionel Bently, Karin Hoehne, Joanna Kostylo (seated), Friedemann Kawohl, Martin Kretschmer, Frédéric Rideau.