There are numerous points of interest in the newly published Volume 40 – the 2024 issue – of “Scottish Studies”. Notably, this open access journal of the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh has now gone fully online. Virginia Blankenhorn, the editor, gives a good account of the various reasons why this makes sense:
“In addition to saving trees, there are considerable advantages to online publication which we believe more than compensate for the lack of a printed volume. First and foremost, reduced costs will make it possible to publish more frequently – at least once every eighteen months to start with. Second, digital publication will allow easy access from the content of an article to other online resources. An author writing about song, for example, will be able to supply hyperlinks to sung performances available online, thereby allowing readers to hear the songs themselves – a gift to readers unable to read musical notation, and an added benefit to those who do, but who understand how much information such notation typically leaves out. Finally – and, as editor, I deeply appreciate this feature – digital publication will allow errors to be easily and silently corrected as soon as eagle-eyed readers point them out.”
From the Island Voices standpoint, the point about the multimedia affordances of online publication makes particularly good sense, supporting our consistent stance on the primacy of speech. The notation of language, as with music, is an often inadequate and only approximate substitute for the real thing!
So we are, of course, doubly delighted that Virginia also found space for an interview with Gordon Wells about the Island Voices project in a piece on “Digital Developments in Scottish Studies“, alongside parallel contributions from Will Lamb (Edinburgh) and Natasha Sumner (Harvard). Okay, it’s presented here in written format – but with plenty of live links and URLs in the footnotes. Ceum air cheum…!
Our hearty thanks are due to the journal and its editor for finding a space for Guthan nan Eilean in the world of Scottish Studies!