EE Publishing platform
A complete born-digital publication workflow
The Electronic Enlightenment Project provides a complete, non-exclusive, digital publishing environment for born-digital editions of correspondence. This solution is backed by nearly 15 years scholarly experience in the exploration, analysis, editing and publication of multilingual correspondences across a broad range of dates and locations. This makes publication in EEP the best academic and technical solution available anywhere.
EEP publication offers a number of digital opportunities for editors:
- Integration of the born-digital edition into EE’s historical network of correspondences — the primary resource — which is continuously updated and enriched following best editorial practice.
- An eBook publication
- a stand-alone web-site of the edition.
Publication through EEP offers a digital-correspondence solution for any sized collection, from a single letter to thousands of letters, covering any geographic location or time period.
Publishing a born-digital edition in EE
An EEP born-digital edition starts with a copy of eeRoundTrip, a Word template system allowing editors to benefit from EEP’s workflow:
- Contributors provide content in styled Word files with simple tables for metadata.
- EE processes the data and imports it into its editing database.
- Letters, lives, critical apparatus & metadata are checked and standardized.
- These are then interwoven into the complex fabric of EE.
- After further checking, the entire collection — now including the new born-digital edition — is published live on www.e-enligtenment.com.
One of the key things to remember regarding publishing in EE is our updating and development programme, which continues to enrich the born-digital edition within the context of the entire historical social network.
Additional EE-digital offerings
Digital files
At a minimum EE will return the processed content as digital files, which can be used as necessary by the contributor.eBook
On a for-cost basis, EE will produce a downloadable eBook anthology of selected content, chosen by the editors, which could contain relevant biographies along with the selected letters (with or without critical apparatus), along with an index to people and letters (by name and date respectively).
The contributor may provide an introductory essay to the collection, or a connecting narrative as part of the eBook. Digital files will be provided in two common eBook formats: ePub and Mobipocket (compatible with Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle respectively).
ee-Lite
A self-contained website of the relevant born-digital content with a standardized look and functionality based on the primary resource, with customization options for appropriate branding. ee-Lite could be purchased by
- archives, to provide an online repository of their contribution to the born-digital edition (this can be made available to any participating archive).
- institutional departments, to provide an online repository of their academic’s /academics’ contribution to the born-digital edition.
This solution saves archives and academic departments from committing ongoing resources to the development of the necessary support and maintenance of an in-house digital publication. The system is designed for deployment onto a cloud server: the initial version is designed for Google App Engine (see: What Is Google App Engine? <http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html>). Using this system saves the collaborating institution from purchasing and hosting a physical server, along with the necessary support and maintenance.
Moreover, since the foundation of ee-Lite is the same as that of the primary resource, there is no need for further, complex data-conversion to publish the content digitally.
In this way, we offer a complete solution to contributors and their associated institutions for electronic publication of their edition without a massive investment of time, resources and administration.
— Dr Robert V. McNamee
Director, Electronic Enlightenment Project