When Publishing is not Printing and the Book is not a Codex: Transitional Models for Electronic Editions

The development of electronic editions can be read as a transitional point in book history, of the same order of importance as the shift from rolls to codex or from manuscript to print. Such transitions have tended to be gradual, though, and electronic editions are still a relatively new development, only having existed for a little more than twenty years. Many of the early statements made about the potential of these editions have proved to be overly optimistic. However, we should recognise the real and exciting possibilities opened for scholarly editions by electronic media. In spite of questions about their cost and sustainability, electronic editions constitute an undeniable advance in the access they provide to digitised images, their ability to facilitate the collation of textual variants and their capacity to make possible new forms of editorial collaboration.