The records maintained in this section of RICORSO are divided into “Old Series” and “New Series” corresponding to the periods during which my research materials were invested in the PGIL-EIRData and the RICORSO websites. In the “Old Series” the files are listed under the names of the computers and locations involved in building the said website - i.e., “Adelaide” (home), “Cromore” (Univ. of Ulster), and “Mercury” (a travelling laptop mostly used in Dublin). Files updated by FTP from each of these locations were copied to USB drive and carried back to the main computer located at my home (i.e., “Adelaide”) in order to form a day-by-day record of editorial maintenance work and scholarship editors.

As explained in the index of the “New Series”, the practice of carrying the whole website on a USB pen drive after circa March 2008 has resulted in a single record in place of the three location-related records in the previous set and, with this innovation, the files identified with each location were reorganised into annual periods. Here, also, there are lacuna due in part to my lapse of interest in the log-making process as the prospects of renewing funding from any source diminished.

Emerging hopes during 2009 that the website might hold a recognised place in Irish studies resulted in a renewed impetus, however, and records had been strictly kept since that time. Here, however, the intervals are longer since the higher-capacity pen-drives of the present (i.e., 4GB and greater) enables the maintenance of larger numbers of files on the “local” drive of the website, together with greater numbers of back-up records and archives of the whole site in successive states of development. It is not been necessary since to locate the website on a single static hard-drive.

Each list of uploads in the RICORSO Logbook logbook has been generated by means of the “Synchronise” command in Macromedia Dreamweaver - the software in use for production of the website. The resultant record gives some idea of amount of editorial activity involved during the periods in question simply by listing the name of each file altered but does not accurately reflect the true extent of work conducted since no only since lapses have occasionally occurred in the updating process - that is to say, uploading files without keeping a record of the files uploaded - but because the system of record in use cannot, of its nature, give any account of the number of editorial interventions in the contents of the webpages.

Changes within a given file may range from orthographical and/or formatting edits (often conducted by use of macros) to major textual additions and alterations in the linkage to other files or files on the website. It is practically impossible to calculate the scale of that activity. By way of indication, the total number of uploads resulting from such interventions on the part of the webmaster between Feb. 2005 and Augusty 2007) stood at 27,318 compared with the 8,000 files which comprise the website. I have made no calculation for the subsequent period.

Bruce Stewart; revised Aug. 2010.