Obfitość źródeł jako problem edytorski
The abundance of sources as an editorial problem. How to help the researcher?

Author(s): Jolanta Sikorska-Kulesza
Subject(s): History
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: editing of 19th and 20th century sources; large editorial projects; mass sources; mass of sources; databases; repositories; social archives; oral history
Summary/Abstract: The abundance of sources created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is one of the most characteristic features of the source basis for the study of the last two centuries, and also a problem for the researcher and source editor. The article draws attention to the lack of structural learning solutions that facilitate the undertaking of large editorial projects requiring years of work (excluding grants). It also presents various methods that have been developed in the editing of 19th and 20th century sources over the last half century in relation to sources appearing in large numbers. The author distinguishes between the over-abundance of sources, that is their huge amount, and the mass sources with an even larger volume, but with a homogeneous repetitive information structure, enabling (not always) the use of shortened forms of editing and databases. At the same time, the author points out that editions are not the only form (and not always the best one) of facilitating these types of sources, especially nowadays in the age of digital technologies. The article shows other methods of facilitating the sources for the researcher: repositories with digital reproductions of sources and tools that allow quick access to information; above all, it empahsizes the development of databases. The author draws attention to non-university initiatives of making sources available, often social (social archives) collecting oral sources (oral history).

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