Some Thoughts on Literary and Linguistic Computing

Abstract

It is a pleasure and privilege to offer as the principal essay of this issue the reflections of Joan M. Smith on literary and linguistic computing. One of a handful of specialists who can truly be called a pioneer and expert in this exciting field of humanistic study, her computing career dates from the mid1950's. After a break to bring up a young son, she formally returned to computing in 1970 when she joined the staff of the University of Manchester Regional Computer Centre, leaving in 1972 to become a senior consultant in the Standards Division at the United Kingdom's National Computing Centre, also in Manchester. Ms. Smith is a member of several standards committees (BSI and ISO) for text preparation and interchange, character sets and coding, and computer languages for the processing of text. A fellow of the British Computer Society, in 1973 she co-founded the International Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing from which she retired as Chairman last year. Additionally, she is senior member of the executive council of the Association for Computers in the Humanities, which she helped to inaugurate. She recently proposed the setting up of an international SGML U ers' Group, the Standard Generalized Markup Language relating to electronic publishing. Her experience includes the editing of several publications dealing with various aspects of computing in professional and academic environments, and she is the author of many technical papers, articles, reports and book reviews. In her remarks here she draws on her some thirty years of acquaintance with computers. N.D.