» Head of electronic text production (rank: Associate Librarian [1999-2003], Senior Associate Librarian [2004- ]), University of Michigan Libraries. Associate Editor, Middle English Compendium; Production Mgr, EEBO/Evans/ECCO Text Creation Partnership (TCP) (Nov. 1999-present).

Manage the analysis, production, and review of 30,000+ SGML/XML-encoded books for online distribution, including the contents of the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (CME), the American Verse Project, and the text corpora produced under the aegis of the Text Creation Partnerships (TCP), viz. Early English Books Online (EEBO), Evans Early American Imprints (Evans) and the text component of Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO). Manage relations with multiple vendors, analyze prospective projects, create and maintain specifications and standards, create and manage workflow systems, metadata, and tracking databases. Manage the completion, repair, and maintenance of the electronic Middle English Dictionary and Hyperbibliography of Middle English, and other text conversion projects, such as Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary online. Supervise the staff and create the processes and procedures of the electronic text production group. Maintain contact with similar projects and advancers of the art.

Production Coordinator (rank: Assistant Librarian), Middle English Compendium, Univ. of Michigan Libraries. (Oct. 1997-Oct 1999)

Manage the editing, encoding, and code-proofing process leading to a digital SGML-encoded version of the 15,000-page Middle English Dictionary together with an expanded hyperbibliography of Middle English in digital form.

» Head Technical Services Librarian, Jackson Community College, Jackson County, Michigan (September 1996-September 2011)

Conduct all cataloguing and holdings-maintenance, supervise materials processing and inventory control for a small (40,000-title) academic library. Original- and copy-catalogue (OCLC/Dynix/Horizon/Symphony) items in all formats, including monographs, serials, AV and computer media, government documents, and archival materials. Manage course reserves. Serve as selector for fine arts, art history, geography, philosophy, religion, and (formerly also) electronics and related trades. Plan, create, and maintain historical archives; create draft library web page; staff the reference desk and perform system trouble-shooting as needed; serve as library's representative, e.g. on Operations Committee, in planning facilities upgrade with InfoTech division, and in implementing automation-system migration with consortium members; etc.

Review Editor, Middle English Dictionary, University of Michigan (July-Sept 1997)

Associate Research Editor, Middle English Dictionary, University of Michigan (1993-1997)

Assistant Research Editor, Middle English Dictionary, University of Michigan (1989-93)

Analyze linguistic corpora in several languages; perform primary research into often obscure technical vocabulary on diverse subjects; write definitions and etymologies; compose dictionary entries; edit for elegance and concision and to conform to house style; select illustrative quotations; instruct junior editors in procedures; revise the work of other staff lexicographers for publication--all under strict deadlines, in a genuinely collaborative environment. Participate in the larger world of scholarship through conference papers, reviews, articles, peer-reviewing, as well as less formal exchanges.

Lecturer in English, University of Michigan, Medieval Research Colloquium (1992).

Assistant Professor of English (sabbatical replacement), Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York (1988-89).

Teaching Assistant, Program in Medieval Studies, Cornell University (1984-87).

Create, develop, and prepare courses, teach, tutor, etc., in a variety of humanities subjects, for both graduate and undergraduate students. Edit essays and prepare materials. Work on policy committees.

Research Assistant, Soviet Studies Committee, Cornell University (1988).

Research and prepare briefing materials on institutional policies and programs.

Research Assistant, Fiske Icelandic Collection, Olin Library, Cornell University (1988).

Research Assistant, Special Collections, Olin Library, Cornell University (1987).

Research and prepare rare-books exhibit; serve as consultant and digital type designer for multilingual publications; edit and prepare manuscripts for publication.

Industrial materials cataloguer, Purchasing Computerization Project, Ideal Basic Industries, Denver, CO (1981-82).

Supervise a working group devoted to centralizing and computerizing the purchasing system of a major industrial corporation.

Librarian [library-designer and cataloguer], American Board of Missions, Orangeburg, NY (1979-80).

Solely responsible for creating a professionally catalogued library from scratch.

• Review of The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley, edited by Thomas N. Corns, Ann Hughes, and David Loewenstein (2 vols., Oxford University Press, 2009) in Sixteenth Century Journal [forthcoming].
• Review of Character Books of the English Renaissance: a Selection, ed. Peter Groves and Geoffrey Hiller, in Sixteenth Century Journal, 41:4 (Winter 2010), 1245-1246.
• "What can you do with 40,000 early English (and Welsh) books: or TCP for psammophiles." Paper given at the 2009 conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts (DRHA 2009), Queen's University Belfast, September 2009.
• "Transcription as Treason." Paper given at the fortieth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 2005.
• "DOST and MED and the Virtues of Sibling Rivalry," in Perspectives on the Older Scottish Tongue, ed. Christian Kay. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005. Pp. 119-31.
• "Transcription as Translation: Complicated Answers to Simple Questions about the Production of Textual Surrogates." Paper given at the 2004 conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH 2004), University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, September 2004.
• "Three Easy Pieces: A Modular Approach to Building Digital Libraries." Paper given at the 2003 conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH 2003), University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus, Cheltenham, September 2003.
• "'Keying what you see' in Early English Printed Books." Paper given at the 2002 conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH 2002), University of Edinburgh, September 2002.
• "Reading without Understanding: an Elusive and Dubious Goal of Text Conversion." Paper given at the annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), Institute of English Studies, University of London, July 2002.
• "Gains and Losses in the Mass Production of Electronic Texts for Scholars." Paper given at the thirty-seventh International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 2002.
• "Scaling Mt. EEBO: Creating a Production Process for Large-scale Text Conversion." Paper given at the 2000 conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH'2000), University of Sheffield, September 2000.
• "The Lyfe of Soule in Context." Paper given at the thirty-fifth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 2000.
• "Digitising the Middle English Dictionary: Ten Lessons in Practicality." Paper given at the Conference on Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH'99), King's College, London, September 1999.
• "A Brief History of man and woman." Paper given at the Third International Conference on Middle English, University College, Dublin, July 1999.
• Lyfe of Soule, ed. with transl. and introd. in: Cultures of Piety: Middle English Devotional Literature in Translation (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1999).
• Middle English Dictionary. Approx. a thousand entries appearing in fascicle T7 (1996) et seq.
• "Towards an Interlingual Lexicon." Paper given at the Conference on Multilingualism in Late Medieval Britain, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, September 1997.
• "Tagging the Silences: Retrospective Encoding of the Middle English Dictionary," paper given at the thirty-first International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 1996.
• "The Errant Morsel of Solomon and Saturn II: Liturgy, Lore, and Lexicon," Mediaeval Studies 57 (1995): 223-57.
• "Exempla and the Art of Persuasion." Paper given at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 1995.
• Review of Larry D. Benson, A Glossarial Concordance to the Riverside Chaucer, in Chaucer Yearbook 3 (1996): 151-56.
• "The Ethics of the Body in Sidrak and Bokkus." Paper given at the twenty-ninth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 1994.
• Review of Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150, in Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 94.4.10 (1994): 32kB file.
• Review of Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France, in Envoi: A Review Journal of Medieval Literature 3.2 (Autumn 1992): 418-425.
• The Ethics of Body and Soul in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," dissertation, 1990.
  Director: Thomas D. Hill; Committee members: +Robert E. Kaske, Wayne Harbert, Arthur Groos.
• "Customized Screen and Laser printer Fonts," Old English Newsletter 22 (1989): 25-8.
• "Britain's iudices," in Gildas: New Approaches. Ed. David Dumville and Michael Lapidge. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 151-55.

• Ancient: Greek, Latin, Gothic.
• Medieval: Latin, Old and Middle English, Old and Middle French, Old and Middle German (Saxon and High German), Old Norse-Icelandic, Middle Welsh, Cornish, Breton.
• Modern: German, Spanish

Return to Schaffner home page