2.5.2. Publication of the edition
Tarrin Wills 2012, ‘Publication of the edition’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. xxxviii.
From an early stage the edition was intended to be published both in print and electronically. The underlying data are stored in the database, and the mechanism for producing the typeset book version is largely automatic: a set of scripts extracts data from the database and organises material into the general layout for the book, while style sheets format it so that it can be imported into a word-processor template. Once imported, the layout is checked, with minimal further adjustments made before a printable document is produced. This process produces consistent layout and formatting.
While the print version produces a static text, the edition is also published electronically, allowing users to access the data associated with the edition in different ways. The electronic edition incorporates all the information in the print edition: Text, Prose order, Translation, references to previous Editions, introductory and contextual information, manuscript information, textual apparatus and Notes. These data are mostly linked and cross-referenced: the words in the Text, Prose order and Translation are linked to each other and to relevant Readings and Notes; Readings are linked to Manuscripts and source texts, and all of this information can be accessed through links and other forms of dynamic content. In addition, the electronic edition allows the incorporation of all the material used in producing the edition, most significantly, images of the manuscripts (which are linked page-by-page to the individual stanzas), and transcriptions of the manuscripts where they have been entered into the database. Kennings and words are automatically indexed, allowing searches on referents and word forms. In addition, the discursive text of the edition can be searched.