Dig. library and bibliography of lit. in translation (DLBT)

In recent years, the focus of literary research has shifted from a national to a transnational perspective. This transnational turn has been brought about by the insight that the characteristics and developments of national literatures cannot be viewed separately from literary evolutions in other cultural and linguistic areas. Literary identities are not given entities, but are created in and through the confrontation with other literatures and cultures. Translations play an important role in this process of cultural transfer. Instead of viewing the translation of literature as a form of one-way traffic from the source language to the target language, literary translations are nowadays more and more seen as a crucial factor in the dissemination, reception and circulation of literature across linguistic and cultural borders. The Digital Library and Bibliography of Literature in Translation (DLBT) is a new database and infrastructure for research on the complex relationships between original works and their translations or between translations and their cultural contexts. By bringing together translations and their reception documents in one digital collection, the catalogue and the portal of the DLBT will simplify the access to translated literatures. The DLBT will not only present the digitized content and bibliographic metadata of the translations, but also their material characteristics (book covers, illustrations, etc.) and afterlife in public discourse. The database will also include adaptations in other media, such as film or theatre. The interactive research portal will enable users to make suggestions for additions and corrections, that are processed by the editorial staff. Moreover, special tools will enable users to create statistics and visuals of the connections between literary works and their translations and between different translations and their translators or publishers. This way, the cultural transfer which is essential to the phenomenon of literature in translation will become better traceable. To demonstrate the facilities and the potential of the DLBT we will build a pilot based upon Dutch literature in translation. In the long term, the technological infrastructure developed for the DLBT will allow different editorial boards to add further digital bibliographies and collections of other literatures in translation to the database. Hence, the content of the database can always be edited, corrected, and supplemented. The active and continued involvement of several international experts, the cooperation with other projects and the use of internationally accepted standards will guarantee its quality. The DLBT addresses central needs in the digital humanities by providing open access to bibliographies, metadata, digitized texts and adaptations of translated literature. The purpose of the DLBT is to serve as a gateway to literature in translation and its reception for scholars, translators, teachers, as well as publishers, cultural organizations and the general public. Its innovative infrastructure will form an indispensable service for researchers working on the circulation and reception of translated literature.