Well here we are at the start of another academic year. They seem to roll round more quickly every time, and suddenly we find ourselves with just over a year to the end of this phase of the project. How time flies. Over the summer, as usual, things have gone a little quiet here at Estoria Towers (in fact very quiet at the old Estoria Towers, since we were politely asked to move to a new pad not that long ago – Estoria Towers 2.0 if you will) but we are now back with our noses to the proverbial grindstone while there are still plenty of parking spaces and space in the library before term starts.
We have been joined by two new members of the team – Dr Ricardo Pichel Gotérrez, long-time friend of the project, who has joined us as a research fellow, and Javier Sebastián Moreno, a doctoral researcher from the UAM.
Thanks to the trojan-like transcribing efforts of our research fellows Fiona, Enrique and Ricardo we have great news – our transcriptions are almost done! Ricardo has been up close and personal with some of the manuscripts in Spain and we are now checking and tweaking the transcriptions ready to run them through the collation tool very soon. Exciting times ahead.
Work has also started on what the eventual project will look like, and we hope to be able to show a new and updated preview before too long. Watch this space.
Preparations for the upcoming colloquium in Seville are now well underway. Hotels and flights have been booked, and the programme is being finalised. There is a special visit to the cathedral planned on our old friend Alfonso’s 794th birthday. Watch out Seville, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The EDIT team is on the way.
Now our transcriptions are almost complete, crowdsourcing here at the Estoria project has entered somewhat of a chrysalis stage, or so we hope, as we have all but brought it to a close for the time being, but we hope to be able to start it up again before too long with some exciting developments. In contrast to the words of the wise philosopher Jessie J, it is all about the money (money, money).
We look forward to being able to give more details about our exciting plans for Seville and for crowdsourcing, how the collation is going, as well as the Big Deal that is the eventual website we will be presenting to the world before too many months pass by.
For now, though, back to the thesis! (I write this like woe-is-me when in reality I haven’t done a scrap of work in six months. Still, woeful is the journey of the PhD student. Just keep swimming.)