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But, you might ask,
what has prompted the Mark Twain Papers and Project to enter the brave new
world of the digital critical edition after 35 years of sustained print
publication? Two things in particular
stand out.
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The first is a
matter of copyright. The Mark Twain
Foundation has granted the University of California Regents exclusive rights
to the digital publication of Mark Twain’s writings for a ten-year period
(2002-2012). The Mark Twain Papers and
Project and the UC Press are keen to capitalize on this agreement and, if
possible, extend it. In addition, the
Papers and Project have been the recipient of several major NEH grants
specifically designated to fund the digital rather than print publication of
critical editions of Twain. Most recently, a major software company has
offered to fund the scanning of all of Mark Twain’s works in exchange for use
of the content, and that contract is pending.
The resultant facsimiles will be incorporated into the web site as
well.
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As you might
imagine, the technological demands of mounting a scholarly digital project
like this often exceed the capacity of those who work in the world of the
critical edition. Too frequently,
critical editions exist as a labor of love rather than a rationalized process
with institutional or external support.
Our goal with the Mark Twain Project is to build a prototype - both
technological and institutional - for the development of scalable and
sustainable digital scholarly editions of literary works. Our best hope for achieving that goal
resides in the collaborative model we’ve established among the CDL, the Mark
Twain Papers and Project and the UC Press.
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