online research community

This essay reflects on the shift of user interaction operated by online literary archives and databases. One can easily recognize a change of scenery happening in the current networked world, given the way authors and general public produce, catalog, tag, access, research, analyze, preserve and share knowledge.
In the field of electronic literature, the creation of several collaborative and open access databases attests this trend. For this purpose, I review two of them: the PO.EX Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature and the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. My aim is to contribute to an informed view on how these online literary databases are shaped and are shaping the field: What is their scope? How do they operate? What kind of navigation and user input exists? Why should they really matter?
Finally, I use these insights to develop some considerations concerning the relations between memory and archive, and different perspectives on electronic literature preservation.

(Source: Author's Abstract)

PO.EX (http://po-ex.net) is a digital archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature that began in 2005. This literary database is coordinated by Rui Torres, at the University Fernando Pessoa, in Oporto, Portugal, and was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] (FCT) and the European Union, under two main research projects: “CD-ROM da PO.EX: Poesia Experimental Portuguesa, Cadernos e Catálogos” [The PO.EX CD-ROM: Portuguese Experimental Poetry, Notebooks and Catalogues] (2005-2008) and “PO.EX’70-80: Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa” [PO.EX’70-80: Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature] (2010-2013).

PO.EX (http://po-ex.net) is a digital archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature that began in 2005. This literary database is coordinated by Rui Torres, at the University Fernando Pessoa, in Oporto, Portugal, and was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] (FCT) and the European Union, under two main research projects: “CD-ROM da PO.EX: Poesia Experimental Portuguesa, Cadernos e Catálogos” [The PO.EX CD-ROM: Portuguese Experimental Poetry, Notebooks and Catalogues] (2005-2008) and “PO.EX’70-80: Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa” [PO.EX’70-80: Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature] (2010-2013).

(Source: Author's Abstract)

Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP) is a research project (2010-2013) that gathered several European academic partners from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Slovenia, and a non-academic institution, New Media Scotland. Funded by the HERA Joint Research Programme and by the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities Programme from the European Commission, the project is led by Scott Rettberg (University of Bergen, Norway). In addition to conferences, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, anthologies (e.g. European Electronic Literature), videos and numerous publication, the project’s main outcome was the development of the ELMCIP Knowledge Base (http://elmcip.net).