Petra Söderlund, Vitterssamfundet

2009-2013

The aim of the project has been to create a structure for digital scholarly editions, The Selma Lagerlöf Archive (SLA), starting with two novels by Selma Lagerlöf: Gösta Berling's saga and Osynliga länkar ("Invisible links"). This was to be achieved through co-operation between The National Library (NL), The Swedish Literature Bank (LB) and the Swedish Society for Belles Lettres (SSBL). An authorship archive was to be created, containing digital facsimiles and illustrations along with written introductions to Lagerlöf's authorship and her works. A search engine and a user interface for a database (created 2006-2007; "the bibliography database") containing data about Lagerlöf's works and manuscripts have also been developed as well as a tool for digital collation of texts, Juxta, for use as a web application on the SLA website.
The archive part, or function, of the project might seem to be more emphasized than in the initial description of the project which was more focused on the scholarly editions. This is a consequence of the 25% position at the department for digitization at the NL that was included in the project application, the effect being an increase of the amount of digital facsimiles in SLA, but also a better organization of the Selma Lagerlöf-collection at NL.

The project has resulted in scholarly editions of Gösta Berling's saga and Osynliga länkar ("Invisible links"), with the first editions from 1891 and 1894 as base-texts. Accompanying these texts are critical apparatuses, accounts for manuscripts and later editions or/and publications elsewhere, explanatory notes and texts in later editions proofread for collation in Juxta. The technical developing of Juxta is finished, but it has not yet been embedded in SLA's interface. During 2013 it will be possible to compare various editions of a work instead of publishing traditional lists of variants on SLA's own website. Metadata has been added to all digital facsimiles provided by NL.
Scholarly texts on Lagerlöf's authorship initially published in print have been collected (as digital files or scanned) and publishing permissions from stakeholders has been obtained. The purpose is to gradually add more of older material to the SLA website, making it a research tool and an archive.
Texts introducing Lagerlöf's authorship has been translated to English, as well as texts explaining functions on the SLA site.
Furthermore it is now possible to search Lagerlöf's texts through a search engine.
The bibliography database has been exported from a relational database to XML; a complex task which facilitates working in and with the database. The database has now a user interface and search functions, but some minor adjustments are needed.

Controlling scanned texts processed through OCR was delayed, due to failure in communication between the head of the NL and the library's department of digitization which lead to a slower delivery of digital facsimiles than was expected. The consequence was a delay in transforming scanned text into xml-files. Initially there was also some trouble using Juxta, but this problem is now resolved and the tool has been very useful for collation and controlling texts processed through OCR.
Searching the bibliography database has during most of the project time not been possible, due to the fact that the database had to be transformed from a relational database to XML. This could be done only recently. The consequence has been that searching the database for a period of time had to be done outside the interface - and this has of course been inconvenient.
The need for technical staff has generally been underestimated and creating a standard for the mark up of annotations to the texts has been more complex than what was predicted.

The project has not to a satisfactory level been integrated in the NL:s (the allocation manager) organisation. SLA has been treated as an external project with NL as administrator of payroll and administration concerning travelling expenses, illness, maternity leave etc. The project has not at all been integrated in the research department of NL, despite attempts from the project manager. Workplace at the NL has been provided only to project co-workers already employed at the NL (two persons in 2010-2011). In 2012 SSBL has been the project administrator instead. Operating partners of the project have in practice been LB and SSBL, while NL has functioned as supplier of digitized material. This will also be the projected role of the NL, from 2013 and onwards. The manager of the library department of NL, Agneta Holmenmark, is now a member of the SLA board and an explicit expectation is that the NL will give digitization of material for SLA some priority in digitization plans. SLA and NL will also cooperate in standards for metadata.
Concerning consolidation of SLA it has recently been decided that the structure will be transferred to LB and become a (more developed) part of this structure. In this way the long-term durability of SLA is secured through a well established organisation with well-developed routines for preservation and maintenance of digitized texts and other digitized material. The transfer to LB will take place in 2013. SLA will after the year 2013 not continue as a large scale project but instead as smaller sub-projects, gradually expanding SLA with material. In 2013 the project funding is granted by Stiftelsen Natur & Kultur and by Louise Vinge and the work will focus on the transfer to LB and on publishing two book editions (Gösta Berling's saga and an anthology with speeches by Lagerlöf). Furthermore more texts will be added to the site, including a digital edition of Körkarlen ("Thy Soul shall bear Witness") (already existing as a printed edition, from 2009).

One of the research questions raised by the project is how to account for textual changes in a manuscript to compensate for traditional lists of changes, done in a more useful and acceptable way for research and readers.) A new method has been prepared in consultation with the SLA editorial board. This will in the future also be used in some of the critical editions published by SSBL.
An important theoretical question with methodological consequences is how to build an authorship archive without automatically creating a monument and a traditional way of writing literary history. SLA has handled this problem by making the metadata of SLA interoperable with other database projects, such as Women Writers Database at the Huygens Instituut in Haag. In this way the material in SLA can be reached from other databases and Selma Lagerlöf's position in an international perspective will be more visible. The digital text corpus provided by SLA can also be searched by digital tools, for instance by "topic modelling" (i.e. mechanically identifying word combinations) or through digital collation tools, such as Juxta, compare various translations. In this way translations adapted for certain national contexts can be identified.

The main result of the project is all the material produced for publication on the SLA website (open access). Although the interface is not quite finished - this has not been prioritized due to the decision to transfer the site to LB in 2013 - all material produced for the website is marked up and prepared for publication, located in the project repository. There is a demo-site at http://demo.selmalagerlofarkivet.se/#!start showing a majority of the material: Digital facsimiles, e-texts, commentaries and search functions. The user interface is however not adjusted, which will be done in conjunction with the transfer to LB.
The project has been presented at some international conferences: 11-13/5 2011 at "Click-on-Knowledge" in Copenhagen, 20-22/6 2011 at "Selma Lagerlöf 2011: text, translation, film" in London, 13-16/4 2011 at "Cost Action IS0901. Womens writing in history" in Belgrad, 18-20/7 2012 at Digital Humanities konferens i Hamburg and 5-8/6 2012 på "Association of Critical Heritage Studies Annual Conference" in Gothenburg