Stepping Back and Leaping Forward

Abstract

Beginning with this issue, 8.1, Textual Cultures moves to the online, open-access platform managed by IUScholarWorks. Consequently, the studies henceforth bearing the imprimatur of the Society of Textual Scholarship may reach a worldwide audience without the restrictions of paid subscriptions or passwords. Open access, however, does not lead to a loosening of editorial standards. Peer evaluation and careful collaboration among authors and editors will remain hallmarks of the work contained within the journals “pages”, that is, its electronic pages, for the convention of pagination will be retained for ease of citation. An online format provides a convenient milieu for discussions of hypertextuality, image/text relations, film studies, music, and other fields that rely on technologies to which the printed medium proves less conducive. Moreover, as those who work in digital editing and the creation of digital databases make improvements to their projects and techniques, pulling examples from those powerful tools into articles in Textual Cultures will be effortless. The articles contained in the inaugural online issue make use of hyperlinks as well as PowerPoint slides, and soon we hope to include music and video files, 3D model files, and anything else that might come down the fiber-optic highway. When moving forward, it is wise to step back and assess the situation in which we find ourselves. I was reminded of this just recently, during a research trip. Christopher Callahan (Illinois-Wesleyan University), MarieGenevieve Grossel (Universite de Valenciennes), and I are producing an edition of the melodies and texts of the songs of Thibaut de Champagne (d. 1253). Most of Thibaut’s manuscripts are catalogued in Paris, and the major