Digital Nineteenth-Century Serials for the Twenty-First Century: A Conversation

Abstract

In this conversation, Laurel Brake and James Mussell discuss journals and digitization. They were both editors of the Nineteenth Century Serials Edition (ncse), a digitized edition of six nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals published in 2008. The conversation takes in the digitization of historical periodicals in the broader context of contemporary, born-digital periodical titles. Nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals present particular challenges: there are so many of them; they are poorly catalogued; runs are fragmented; and they survive in many forms. As well as this troublesome archive, they also consider the problems posed by periodical form itself. Is there a place for periodicity in an always-on digital world? Birkbeck was the base for ncse from 2005 to 2008, and Brake and Mussell were both involved with 19 in its first few years. They discuss the potential of born-digital periodicals like 19 and consider how, to date, 19 has exploited its medium. In many ways this anniversary issue — combining text, audio, and video and marking a particular moment — exemplifies how much more work there is to do.