Transitions

While not representative of the monumental shift of TEXT 17: From TEXT to Textual Cultures (2005) to Textual Cultures 1.1 (2006), this issue does mark several transitions. Most pragmatic for a portion of the essays in 7.1 will be the state of transition, begun in April 2011 and still currently in progress, that will result in the transformation of the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) into the National Records of Scotland (NRS). It is emblematic that well over a year on the website for the NRS is still www.nas.gov.uk/. Rather than anticipating the finalization of this process by referring only to the new NRS, it seemed to me appropriate to note the ongoing transition so that current and future readers will be able to trace the transformation.

Equally emblematic is the publication of Textual Cultures with Indiana University Press. Slightly after the Society decided to conclude its publishing agreement with the Press and move to its publishing home of Indiana University Scholar Works, the Press was transferred under the new umbrella of the Provost's Office of Scholarly Publishing, which will include IU Scholar Works as well. With the conclusion of year seven, Textual Cultures will be published by IU Scholar Works. For Textual Cultures this will mean an exponential expansion of its ability to publish the research of our members and in its capacity to utilize files that have been unavailable given the journal's primarily print form.¹ Even though this transition will see changes we still cannot imagine, many elements and the mechanics of Textual Cultures will remain the same, especially the vetting process for submissions. And those who enjoy the physical feel of a print journal will be able to order printed copies of issues. More details will be available in the next issue.

Emblematic as well of this expansion will be the growth of the editorial board as we move fully into the digital as well as into greater applications of textual editing and textual studies. The goal of such an expansion have been printed on the back cover of every issue. I will repeat only the final line that reiterates not a glorified past but what is yet to take place in the ever-expanding fields of textual studies:

Textual Cultures is dedicated to the far-ranging conversation waiting to take place in which the resources of scholarly studies into the complexities of cultural-textual settings that define and redefine a text can provide new perspectives and paradigms for the preparation and interpretation of texts and their containers.

There is much work to be done. When I hear that philology is dead, that scholarly editing is irrelevant with the advent of digital archives, I can only wonder why it is ever more difficult to find a place to work in the manuscript reading room of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris or the Laurenziana in Florence? The admittedly longer editorial process of convincing some contributors to expand the abbreviated STC and cite its editors and others to provide a complete list of the works they cite, and others to give complete shelfmarks rather than simplying citing "MS A" has been part of an effort to demystify what we do and the processes by which we do it. Though textual traditions are often local, writing about them does not have to be. The more open and accessible the conversation the better the chances that conversation will survive. Thus with issue 8.1 (2013) Textual Cultures moves, expands, and redoubles its dedication to the conversation.