Since the celebrations of
the completion of the print
Voltaire edition, work on its
digital incarnation has taken
on a new momentum. 2023
saw Apex CoVantage deliver
the final digitised volume of
the 205, with all 107,500+
pages not only totally
rekeyed, but impressively
tagged to the very high-level
specification drawn up by our
digital consultant, Dan Barker
(DanCan Ltd). All digitised
volumes are subjected to
rigorous checks, and further
undergo a second process of
semantic tagging, whereby
specific types of content
(such as dates, bibliographic
information, quotes and
proper nouns) are identified and encoded by specialist
editors. All decisions made are fed back into custom-
made algorithms in order to improve the identification
of these elements automatically, thus increasing the
efciency of the editorial work.
In parallel, it has been exciting to hold frequent
discussions about the functionality of Digital Voltaire,
and to see our ideas taking shape in a wireframe. This
visual manifestation will serve as a demonstration of
the resource before it is fully developed, thus giving key
stakeholders a preview, as well as the opportunity to
give feedback. While possibilities such as full searches,
or linking to outside resources, are easy to imagine, and
indeed are a given, we are particularly keen to explore
other ways of navigating and interpreting the data,
as well as new methods for visualising how Voltaire’s
text changed over time across diferent manuscript
and print editions, or how multiple letters within the
correspondence are related to and interact with each
other.
Digital Voltaire
Above: Alison Oliver and Gillian Pink in the Voltaire Lab
(photography ©Keiko Ikeuchi)
Below: the Digital Voltaire wireframe work in progress
Opposite: the Voltaire Library Database
We are investigating several options regarding the
financial model, the marketing and the dissemination
of Digital Voltaire, all of which necessarily go hand-
in-hand.
4 | VOLTAIRE FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2022/23