The UC Riverside Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) has won $405,000 to build software that will help edit and curate the English Short Title Catalog (ESTC).
In the past, the CBSR won $48,500 from the Mellon Foundation for curating and expanding the ESTC. The goal of the new grant is to allow scholars to help curate the ESTC by adding information to entries. According to a write-up in UCR Today,
Approval from ESTC staff will be required for changes suggested to core catalog data, which must remain intact for use by librarians . . .The new software will allow additional information provided by researchers to be recorded in different data fields, with safeguards designed to prevent errors.
Congratulations to the staff at CBSR for this tremendous accomplishment. For more information, see ucrtoday.ucr.edu.
Tags: Bibliography, cataloguing, crowdsourcing, ESTC, Mellon grant
Early Modern Online Bibliography 
February 9, 2014 at 11:36 pm |
Excellent that Mellon has come through with this funding. This project should serve as a model for a specialized form of crowd-sourcing. Indeed, the need for this was mentioned during the audience discussion at the SHARP Book History and Digital Humanities session at MLA, and I had mentioned such plans were in the works, but the reality has arrived sooner than expected.
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February 10, 2014 at 9:17 am |
Yes, this is a well-deserved and needed award. For Patrick Spedding’s thoughts, see http://patrickspedding.blogspot.com/2012/04/wikification-of-estc.html
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February 10, 2014 at 9:22 am |
The ESTC posted its plans a while ago: http://estc21.wordpress.com/planning-grant-2/
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February 10, 2014 at 10:45 am |
I understand Patrick Spedding’s concerns, but I am not as convinced that his fears will become reality. His citing of the small response to the ESTC blog’s call for comments (even though primarily negative) and the expertise represented in those responses suggest otherwise. Any updates offered by Middle Temple’s senior librarian Renae Satterley, for instance, would be welcomed. Similarly, professor emeritus of music and library science, D. W. Krummel remarks about the need to include sheet music and his calls to seek the advice of fellow music librarian David Hunter offer sound advice.
I suspect this project will garner contributions from careful scholars steeped in bibliographical practices such as Jim May, Steve Karian, Cathy Parisian (not to mention those already on ESTC’s board such as David Vander Meulen and those on the planning committee such as Ben Pauley).
And if the EEBO Interactions experiment is any indicator, we should not expect a rush of amateur contributions. Although EEBO Interactions experienced limited traffic, the contributions were useful and informed.
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