
 
The question of what "counts" in the academic world is of course crucial.  For years, in a print environment, scholarly editors have felt unappreciated and inadequately rewarded.  Some have dismissed their work as "pre-critical."  The implication has been that the work is not very difficult intellectually.  Accuracy in transcription and stick-to-itiveness should be enough.  For people doing editorial work in an electronic environment, the risk has been in confronting a double prejudice: a misunderstanding of the real complexity of editorial questions and a dismissal of all things electronic as ephemeral.
 
Our naming of our work thus far perhaps has not done us any favors.  We naturally have turned to the last medium to find metaphors for the work being done in a new medium.  I've discussed the problems with all the terms currently in use in a piece published in DHQ but also available on the Archive: "<a href="http://www.whitmanarchive.org/about/articles/anc.00346.html" rel="nofollow">Edition, Project, Database, Archive, Thematic Research Collection: What's in a Name?</a><strong>"</strong>
