Sustainability of the digital edition
Against the backdrop of rapidly developing web and Digital Humanities capabilities, the project team acknowledge that there is no simple way to ensure sustainability of a given digital resource. Bearing in mind the FAIR principles, a variety of measures have been adopted here to maximise the sustainability of the edition and its potential for re-use and interoperability, while not compromising on the scale and principles of the original project:
- The resource’s functionality will be maintained by the University of Glasgow on a local server. The web address therefore has the best chance of remaining stable. There will also be routine and responsive software updates by University staff.
- The transcription and translation are marked up in TEI-XML, the main standard for digital editions in the humanities, maximising potential for future interoperability or re-use.
- Using the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) allows for future interoperability, since the image and region data remain reusable beyond the current viewer.
- Only relevant images have been uploaded (i.e., not the whole of Cotton MSS Julius B XIII or Faustina B IX but only the ‘Melrose’ portion of them) to reduce the amount of data the project requires (and hosts on its server), therefore reducing its environmental impact.
- The project team will continue to promote the use of the edition for the public and in teaching, to bolster its human sustainability and wider interest in the chronicle.
For further discussion of this general topic, see Joanna Tucker, ‘Facing the challenge of digital sustainability as humanities researchers’, Journal of the British Academy 10 (2022), pp. 93–120 (doi.org/10.5871/jba/010.093).
Author: Jo Tucker
Last updated: 07/06/2026