Abstract As manuscript transcriptions, images, and metadata become more widely available to the public through digital media, (nearly) gone are the days when a Richard Bentley would have to send a Johann Wettstein to a far-off library to acquire collations for his research. The modern Bentley can sit at his or her laptop and immediately access much of what was unavailable prior to the 1990s. While this remains a remarkable boon to scholarship and draws back the veil for the nonexpert, this paper explores the problems attending data democratization at a time when authority and expertise are devalued.
W. Andrew Smith (Mon,) studied this question.