Authorship Studies Now and in the Pre-Digital Age; or, A Tribute to the Old School

By knlc

LM iv March 1773

As Jennie reminded us earlier this month, we have recently entered the last quarter of the term allotted to our research project. Most of my time currently goes to the attribution of the countless anonymous, initialled and pseudonymous items in the Lady’s Magazine, and the ascription of appropriated content. The overwhelming majority of the over 14000 indexed items were published without a (complete) legal name for their authors, and every day I discover more contributions presented as original work that are in fact tacit appropriations from other periodicals, or extracts from books. To make sure that I do not miss too many of the latter I merge my mind fully with my computer, like some bookish Keanu Reeves, and check each item by means of a hypnotic but productive procedure. A while ago it struck me how different my daily routine must be from that of scholars employed on exactly the same task not twenty years ago. So, where do the differences lie?

LM IV (March 1773). Image © Adam Matthew Digital / British Library. Not to be reproduced without permission.

I usually work as follows. I consult the Lady’s …read more

Source:: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/ladys-magazine/2016/01/21/authorship-studies-now-and-in-the-pre-digital-age-or-a-tribute-to-the-old-school/