I agree with this. It isn't just authorial ego and understandable
tenure-anxiety, after all, but ours is a relatively small world and we
often know where each of us is, as they say, coming from and even how to
contact them to learn more. Anne.

 My one concern about the wikipedia model is the anonymity of authors.
> Surely
> one of the great strengths of the Spenser Encyclopedia is the quality of
> its
> contributors? I know there has been much debated about the merits and
> demerits of Wikipedia, with a strong argument made for its being no more
> or
> less accurate than more conventional encyclopedias. But I'm not sure this
> would apply to a more specialized reference work like a new SpEnc. Give
> the
> amount of work involved in researching and writing major articles for such
> a
> work, I suspect authors would want to get credit for their work,
> especially
> in terms of promotion and tenure. But perhaps no one was suggesting a new
> SpEnc follow this aspect of Wikipedia. In other respects this seems an
> excellent idea. I'd note too that many of the articles in the SpEnc have
> applications far beyond Spenser, and an online format would allow or
> facilitate access to a wider range of scholars than Spenserians.
>
> Hannibal
>
>
>
> 2010/4/21 Herron, Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> Hi — I assume Toronto UP would have first dibs on this sort of thing,
>> and
>> if not, I’d encourage Oxford UP or Julian Lethbridge and Manchester UP
>> to
>> get involved somehow.  It’d be a money-maker too, I’m sure, in terms of
>> electronic subscriptions.  (BTW, the SpEnc is a steal when on sale for
>> $35
>> at the U Toronto table at Kalamazoo, as it usually is).  Think too of
>> the
>> links that could be made to iconography etc.  So perhaps Gale or
>> Blackwell
>> or some other journal/database provider will swoop in on it.  It is so
>> helpful on so many topics germane to our field, that if put on-line, I
>> imagine it could/would morph into a renaissance lit resource more
>> generally.
>> --TH
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/20/10 6:20 PM, "Bruce Danner"
>> <[log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>   The concept of an online Spenser Encyclopedia, updatable and editable
>> in
>> wiki form, available with links to bibliography entries [to the Spenser
>> world bibliography], linkable to the text of a potentially online
>> Spenser
>> text [Oxford?], is an incredibly exciting notion. It would represent a
>> true
>> leap in the discipline, and one wonders how difficult it would be to
>> establish, as long as the text of the SE is still available in digitized
>> form. I wince at the pathetically limited material on Spenser on
>> Wikipedia,
>> for example, where so many students go to for an initial treatment. How
>> much
>> better would our student research would become if they had the SE
>> available
>> online. How much more useful to us to have a resource that would
>> updatable
>> and ongoing, rather than held in stasis in 1990.
>>
>> Bruce Danner
>> St. Lawrence University
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "A.C. Hamilton"
>> Sent: Apr 19, 2010 2:31 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> <[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Marks & Spenser
>>
>> *Upon returning to the world -- that is, upon getting out of hospital ?
>> I
>> was surprised and pleased to find comments on my reference to the Marks
>> &
>> Spenser article. Surprised because I had thought that I was writing a
>> private memo and pleased to have prompted praise of the never-too-much
>> read
>> Spenser Encyclopedia, and especially Andrew?s verse. Yet I am aware that
>> the
>> volume is now twenty years out of date and needs to be replaced. It
>> served
>> its function in the late twentieth century as the Variorum served an
>> earlier
>> generation. When it is replaced, I hope it will be replaced by something
>> close to the Wikipedia that may be continuously revised, made up-to-date
>> and
>> improved. The existence of this Forum shows that a new and better SE is
>> possible. Bert
>> *
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Hannibal Hamlin
> Associate Professor of English
> Editor, Reformation
> Organizer, The King James Bible and its Cultural Afterlife
> http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/
> The Ohio State University
> 164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
> Columbus, OH 43210-1340
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
>