Ray delivered the paper “A Professional Reading Environment, Modeled for a Renaissance English Knowledgebase” at Simon Fraser University for the Public Knowledge Project’s Scholarly Publishing Conference.
Abstract:
The Renaissance English Knowledgebase (REKn) contains a combination of digital representations of primary literary and artistic works of the Renaissance (some 13,000 works at present), plus secondary materials reflecting our understanding of these earlier works (some 100,000). These materials are accessed through a reading interface, PReE, supported by a database system that facilitates their navigation and dynamic interaction, also providing access to inquiry-oriented analytical tools beyond simple search functions. The effect is that of providing an expert reading environment for those in our field, one that encourages close, comprehensive reading at the same time as it provides, conveniently, the building blocks of broad-based research inquiry. My talk will discuss REKn and PReE from both theoretical and pragmatic perspectives, focusing on the way in which the reading environment looks to, and plans to integrate, the products of groups such as the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), the Text Analysis Portal for Research (TAPoR), Synergies, and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN).