Catalogue of tools for digital scholarly editing

This dataset is a catalogue of software products and computer tools that can be used to create digital scholarly editions (DSE). The catalogue includes both tools specifically designed for use in the field of digital philology, mostly created by scholars and researchers in the field, and general-purpose tools that have been widely adopted in this field.

For each tool, the following information is presented:

“Name”: the name of the tool.

“Website”: the address of the official website, repository, or wiki that the creators of the tool offer as a showcase to learn about the tool.

“Category”: one of the three macro-categories identified during the creation of the catalogue: “Visualization”, tools intended exclusively for the visualization (or publication) of a DSE; “Mixed”, tools that can be used for both processing and publishing a DSE; and finally, “Production”, tools that can replace or complement the philologist in a particular phase of the editorial process. The distinction between the proposed categories is not always clear-cut; tools have generally been categorized based on their main functionalities and the type of output or result they allow to obtain. A tool is categorized as either for visualization or mixed when it allows the production of a result that can be defined as a digital scholarly edition.

“TaDiRAH activity”: one or more of the activities listed in the TaDiRAH taxonomy that best describe the main functionalities of the tools.

“Begin date”: the date in which the first public version of the tool was released. In cases where the tool was produced experimentally without reaching an official first version, the date of creation of the respective source code repository or the date indicated by the creator as the creation date on the website or in a publication is considered. When only the year is available the date is set on January first of that year. Respectively, when only the year and month are available, the date is set on the first day of the month.

“End date”: the date in which the development of the tool was discontinued. When only the year is available the date is set on January first of that year. Respectively, when only the year and month are available, the date is set on the first day of the month.

“Description”: a more or less brief text used on the website, repository, or wiki of the tool to present it to potential users. It is a more “commercial” than technical text, as its purpose is to encourage the use of the tool, and it briefly describes the main features and characteristics of the tool, with references to partner organizations. The description is included because it is interesting to analyze the words with which the creator presents their tool.

“Institutional Partner(s)”: organizations that financially contributed to the development of the tool. These can be universities, research centers, cultural institutions, public projects, and funds. Since many of these funds are time-limited, I chose to include this information as it helps understand how stable a tool is in terms of development, maintenance, and user support.

“Creator”: the name of the creator or creators of the tool. In the case of commercial software, the name of the company that produced it is provided. Similarly, if the tool was produced by a research center, a collective, or another type of group with an official name, the group’s name is provided. If the tool was created by one or more scholars, their respective names and affiliations are indicated.

“Input Format(s)”: the various formats accepted by the tool as input. In some cases, it is not possible to obtain exact formats, as official sources indicate “text” or “image” generically. In these cases, the most commonly used formats, which are likely supported, are listed: TXT for text and JPEG for images.

“Output Format(s)”: the output formats in which the tool allows exporting the DSE or other types of data. It should be noted that some tools, especially among mixed or visualization-only ones, do not provide data export.

“Technologies”: programming languages, tools, libraries, and frameworks used to develop the tool. Some of the listed tools have been integrated into other tools (for example, OpenSeadragon and VisColl have been integrated into EVT).

“System requirements”: indicates the nature of the tool, such as desktop software, a web-based service, a library, a web-based application, etc., and system requirements (e.g. compatible operating systems).

“Collaborative working": indicates whether the tool is designed for collaborative work, allowing multiple users to work simultaneously on the same materials.

“Open Source”: indicates whether the source code of the tool is freely accessible.

“Repository”: the address of the repository where the source code of the tool is stored.

“License”: the license under which the tool is available. If the tool is available for a fee, it is indicated as “for a fee”. If the tool is free but the exact open-source license is not specified, the license is simply marked as “Free”.

“Current Version”: the number of the latest publicly released version of the tool.

“Editions”: the titles of DSEs that have been created using the tool. This field is very useful for potential user-editors as it allows them to see concretely how a DSE is presented thanks to the tool and/or what scientific results the tool enables. The names are hyperlinks to the respective official websites of the DSEs.

“Publications”: bibliographic references to publications in which the creators present their tool or other scholars review or report their experience using the software with a concrete use case.

For many tools, it was not possible to provide all the above-listed information, either because it was not available in official sources (primarily websites and repositories) or because it was not possible to identify updated and reliable bibliographic sources. The omission of information does not imply that it cannot be obtained through further in-depth study or by contacting the creators themselves. Furthermore, the information may no longer be up-to-date or valid; for example, hyperlinks to websites may no longer be active.

The catalogue is not exhaustive, as it mainly includes tools produced in Italy, Europe, and the United States. The main objective of the work is to provide an initial overview of tools for digital philology, albeit partial and incomplete, and to propose useful categories for analyzing and classifying these tools from the perspective of user-editors who wish to create an DSE. This review constitutes the starting point for a larger research project that I would like to undertake in the future, namely, creating a catalog of computer tools for digital philology.

I would like to thank Professors Roberto Rosselli Del Turco and Lino Leonardi for providing references to several of the analyzed tools.

The list is also available for consultation online.