| Summary: | After a period of experimentation and prototyping, digital editions are
considered a common standard and a serious, quite often even a better
alternative to printed editions. In addition the TEI/XML provides a well
introduced standard for mark-up of all relevant structural and semantic
elements of an edition. In spite of this process of consolidation the digital
edition is still accompanied by harsh critique, particularly by objecting that
mark-up leaning on XML fosters a text model of an Ordered
Hierarchy of Content Objects (OHCO) that does not fit all editorial
problems and limits the flexibility of the editor. As a consequence many
attempts have been undertaken to overcome these limits of XML, but up to now
without much success. By narrowing down the perspective, however, to problems
of the text model seemingly caused by XML it was often overlooked that a
digital edition consists of more than a XML file. This contribution attempts to
show that the critique can be dissolved when the edition is viewed not merely
as a XML file, but as an ensemble of its components. In doing so it can also be
shown that other than its critiques maintain a digital edition is not less
stable or persistent than its printed predecessor. The seeming fluidity of
digital edition disappears if it is no longer determined by its visible
surface, but according to its algorithmic nature by the interplay of its
components of text, structure, layout, interface and metadata.
|
|---|