Page xi →Series Editor’s Preface
We are informed, should we happen to inquire in a search at the open online reference Wikipedia, that in 1728 Ephraim Chambers published his Cyclopedia: or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. Wikipedia was founded in 2001, almost three hundred years after the first publication of Chambers’s Cyclopedia, and it might well be thought that everything had changed, and yet, as Krista Kennedy tells us, there are intriguing similarities in the two enterprises. We can look up the Cyclopedia in Wikipedia; Kennedy shows us that we can also find Wikipedia in Chambers’s Cyclopedia.
In Textual Curation, Kennedy explores how the two encyclopedia projects were conceived, composed, and curated. In her meticulous and wide-ranging historical and critical study of the rhetoric and technology of authorship, composition, and curation, Kennedy, whose account is based on deep archival research, an extensive theoretical grasp, and close analysis of historical and cultural understandings driving both projects, gives us new ways of thinking about the encyclopedic project and about authorship itself. This volume is full of fresh insights, critical re-imaginings, and new integrations of a range of scholarly conversations. Every one of us who has ever used Wikipedia, or advised a student how to use (or how not to use) it, will find in Textual Curation an illuminating reading experience.