Large-Scale Humanities Computing Projects: Snakes Eating Tails, or Every End is a New Beginning?
William A. Kretzschmar · Digital humanities quarterly · 2009
The word finish can mean two things that have quite different implications for large-scale humanities computing projects: to bring to completion; to make or perform completely; to complete and also to perfect finally or in detail; to put the final and completing touches to (a thing). The word finish is just not part of the deal for the Linguistic Atlas Project in either sense. However, granting agencies must ask what do you want money for this time? and, from this viewpoint, the Atlas Project consists of a series of particular tasks or experiments, each one of which is capable of being finished in both senses of the word. This paper discusses the reality of funding, deadlines, and deliverables, as they relate to the sequence of tasks that make up the larger Atlas Project. There are no once-and-done, permanent solutions. The largest humanities computing projects require continuing care and maintenance, and the best way forward is to create some sort of stable institutional setting for large projects that will provide continuity and baseline resources for the work.