© 2004 by Association for Literary & Linguistic Computing
Editorial Theory and Practice in Flanders and the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies
1 Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies, Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Belgium
After Professor Marcel De Smedt of the University of Leuven introduced scholarly editing of modern texts as a discipline in Flanders in the 1980s, the worrying fact emerged during the last decade of the twentieth century that Flemish universities and scholarly research groups were falling well behind in the field of scholarly editing. As a reaction, the inter-university task force Genese was founded in 1993 with its main goal to promote and coordinate the theories and practice of scholarly editing in Flanders. The next decisive step was taken by the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde—KANTL) when they decided to make scholarly editing their primary objective as of January 1998. That decision paved the way for the founding of the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (Centrum voor Teksteditie en Bronnenstudie—CTB), which started on 1 August 2000 as a research institute of the Academy, and which has become the centre of expertise in the field of (electronic) scholarly editing in the Low Countries.