Christmas has come early to Estoria Towers. Our gift has come not from Father Christmas but from Professor Peter Robinson and Dr Cat Smith in the form of the collation tool, and it really is great. Suddenly all our hard work transcribing is starting to pay off as we can see the collation starting to come together and we can compare and contrast the different witnesses all at the same time. This is particularly exciting for me as now I can begin to collate I can get started on the next phase of my thesis. Like all good toys it has so many knobs and buttons that I’m not really sure what I’m doing but I’m sure all will become clear before too long.
2015 has been a great year for the project and things have really started to come together. Most importantly we have finished the transcriptions of our five manuscripts. We have held several seminars in Birmingham and have attended seminars in London. Project team-members have spoken at conferences in Kalamazoo, York, Porto, Paris, Leicester (De Montfort) and Lausanne. Ricardo has been up close and personal with the manuscripts in Spain and of course we enjoyed a fantastic third annual colloquium in Seville. We now find ourselves on the cusp of the final year of the project. Can you believe it? How time flies. We are eagerly awaiting a response about some funding we have applied for to do with public engagement and if we get it 2016 will be a very busy but exciting year for the project. Even if we are not lucky this time we are sure to have a great final year of this phase of the project, collating our witnesses and producing the final edition and of course, celebrating our four years with the fourth annual colloquium in Birmingham. I’m almost tempted to say there might be a fully drafted PhD thesis or two knocking around the project office by next Christmas, but perhaps we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves!
To all who read our EDiT project blogs we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.