Facsimiles (Digital Surrogates)

Rationale

The semi-diplomatic transcriptions of early modern documents and witnesses are usually accompanied by digital surrogates. Ideally, we house the surrogates at UVic and embed them in the transcriptions. We can also point to open-access surrogates housed elsewhere on the internet. If necessary, we will point to the EEBO surrogates of the EEB microfilms, but this is a last resort because EEBO is behind a subscription paywall and thus inaccessible to many users.
LEMDO is not generally interested in hosting digital surrogates simply for the sake of having them. In other words, LEMDO is not a facsimiles collection. Given the laudable work of many libraries to digitize their rare books and manuscripts, and the equally laudable efforts of the ESTC and projects like The Shakespeare Census to point users to holding libraries, LEMDO sees no need to collect and host facsmiles that are not intrinsic to an edition.
Whether or not an edition must include digital surrogates is an anthology-level decision.

Practice

Acquire Facsimiles

To find images, follow these steps:
Check Internet Archive. A lot of libraries, including Boston Public Library and Harry Ransom Centre, are using it for their images.
Check the English Short Title Catalogue for the location of copies.
Search the library at each location to see if there is a digital surrogate of their copy (note: library catalogues include microfilm as well as digital surrogates, and the entries can be misleading. Microfilms will likely be listed with EEB or EEBO).
Note that smaller libraries may be more cooperative than larger libraries.

Select Images for Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

When you select images to include in the LEMDO repository for your semi-diplomatic transcription, there are some considerations to keep in mind. The digital surrogate that you select should:
Be from the copy that the transcription transcribes.
Be open-access.
Be one that we are able to legally download and store.
Be high-resolution.
Include title page and blank pages.
Be a complete copy (i.e., is not missing leaves or gatherings).
Be in colour.
Ideally, be single-page scans. We are able to split spread scans if needed. If your digital surrogate has spread-page images, please contact lemdo@uvic.ca.
Ideally, have a high percentage of corrected sheets (if that information is known).
Not have too much manuscript marginalia.
Not be microfilm (although we will link to EEBO if necessary as a last resort).

Store Facsimiles

Because of the number of images and the size thereof, facsimiles are not stored in the Subversion repository. They are too big to be checked out to platform user’s personal computers. They are saved on a LEMDO content-management system (CMS) hosted by HCMC at https://lemdo.uvic.ca/facsimiles/.

Directory Naming Protocols

Facsimile directories (folders) in the CMS must be named according to the following convention: WORK_SIGLA_LIBRARY_COPY. The information in the filename goes from the most general to the most specific: work, control text, holding library, copy number (if there is more than one copy at the library).
Example
WORK Use the DRE standard abbreviation for the work, as listed in DRE Play IDs. Ham, AYL, DevC, FairEm, H5, FV
SIGLA Give the standard abbreviation or sigla for the publication Q, Q1, Q2, F, F2
LIBRARY Name of the holding library of the copy. Use the LEMDO abbreviation for the holding library. BPL, BL, SLNSW
COPY If a holding library has more than one copy, add the shelfmark, copy number, or call number to the filename 1, 2, Dyce
Examples:
Ham_Q1_BL means the folder containing the facsimiles of the British Library copy of Q1 Hamlet
DevC_Q1_BPL means the folder containing the facsimiles of the Boston Public Library copy of the Q1 publication of The Devils Charter
IYKNM_Q7_F_2 means the folder containing the facsimiles of the Folger Shakespeare Library copy of the Q7 publication of If You Know Not Me, or the Troubles of Queen Elizabeth numbered copy 2 in the Folger collection.

File Naming Protocols

The individual graphic files (.jpg or .png files) containing a single page or a single opening are named as follows:
Image file containing a single page: folderName_001, folderName_002, folderName_003, sequentially from the first page, whether or not the image is of a blank page.
Image file containing a single opening (left and right facing pages): folderName_002, folderName_004, folderName_006, whether or not the images are of blank pages
Examples:
Ham_Q1_BL_008 is the eighth sequential image of the British Library copy of Q1 Hamlet
DevC_Q1_BPL_002 is the second sequential image of the Boston Public Library copy of the Q1 publication of The Devils Charter
IYKN_Q7_F_2_017 is the seventeenth sequential image of the Folger Shakespeare Library copy of the Q7 publication of If You Know Not Me, or the Troubles of Queen Elizabeth numbered copy 2 in the Folger collection.
The sequential file numbers do not have to match the page numbers. The XML file containing the metadata for the facsimile will do the work of matching image file numbers with the through-page numbers (if any) and bibliographical signature numbers of the bookʼs pages.

Library Codes

LEMDO uses recognizable abbreviations for libraries. We have adopted some abbreviations from the Internet Shakespeare Editions and Digital Renaissance Editions. As we add facsimiles from libraries for which we do not already have an abbreviation, use the STC location codes. For a searchable, open-access, linked list of the STC codes, see Meaghan Brown’s website. If we add facsimiles from libraries not listed in the STC, create a logical abbreviation and add it to the table below.
Library Abbreviation/Code
Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Yale University Yale
Boston Public Library BPL
Brandeis Bran
British Library BL
Elham Parish Library, Canterbury Cathedral EPL
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC Folger (STC uses F)
Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, Harvard University HD
Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas Austin TEX
Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California HN
Legislative Library of British Columbia LLBC
Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University TCU
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh NLS (STC uses E)
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, New York City PFOR
Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia RML
State Library of New South Wales SLNSW

Prosopography

Isabella Seales

Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVicʼs Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

Navarra Houldin

Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.

Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title Facsimiles (Digital Surrogates)
Type of text Documentation
Short title
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Source
TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
Editorial declaration n/a
Edition Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status prgGenerated
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.