Quill: Reconstructing the Secretary's Desk for the Records of the 1787 Convention NicholasColenicholas.cole@history.ox.ac.ukUniveristyofOxford,UnitedKingdomAlfieAbdul-Rahmanalfie.abdulrahman@oerc.ox.ac.ukUniveristyofOxford,UnitedKingdomGraceMallongrace.mallon@univ.ox.ac.ukUniveristyofOxford,UnitedKingdomKateHowarthkate.howarth@pmb.ox.ac.ukUniveristyofOxford,UnitedKingdom

Introduction The standard process for negotiating legal and

quasi-legal texts overmore than two hundred yearshasbeenaparliamentaryonethat(withvariations)isstillrecognizableastheonedescribedinThomasJef-ferson’sManualofParliamentaryPractice(1801)(U.S.GovernmentPublishingOffice,2016;May,1844).Pro-posalsareexaminedbyaseriesofcommittees,amend-mentsbeingproposedandvotedon throughout thisprocess. Since the late eighteenth-century,many ofthesenegotiationsofhistoricalnotehaveleftrecordsthatrecordtheproposalsmadeandtheoutcomeofde-cisionstaken. Suchrecordsaredifficulttoread—es-peciallywhentheyconcernanyprotractedorcompli-catedprocessofnegotiation,sinceitrapidlybecomesimpossibleforareadertokeeptrackofthestateofthedocuments under discussion. Fully comprehendingtherecordsifnotreadinchronologicalsequenceisim-possible.

Building on code written for collaborative docu-ment editing,we have built a sophisticated,web-ac-cessibleplatformforthestudyofnegotiatedtexts.Wekepttheunderlyingdata-modelassimpleandgenericasitcouldbewhilemodellingthevariousproceduressuggested by a range of Parliamentary Procedure

handbooks. Weconsideredtheneedsofseveraldis-tinctclassesofusers—thosedoingtheworkofdata-capture, thosereviewingthatwork,thosewishingtocommentonthedetailofthetext,producingsecond-ary materials for a variety of audiences, and thosewishingtonavigatethroughthematerialforavarietyofpurposes.

Initial application One such process of negotiation was that whichcreatedtheUnitedStatesConstitution.TheRecordsofthe1787Convention,despitebeingimperfectandnot(initially)intendedforpublicrelease,infactenableadetailed reconstruction of thework of the Constitu-tionalConvention.Theserecordshavebeenavailableinvariousprintedformssince1819whentheofficialJournalwas firstprinted; theseprintedrecordshavebeen digitized as both images and transcribed text(LilianGoldmanLawLibrary, 2008; Silverbrook andJohnson, 2007; National Archives Catalog, 2016; Li-braryofCongress,2016).Whileindexingandsearch-ingincreasetheutilityofbothpaperanddigitizedver-sions(byallowingreaderstodiscoverwhenparticulartopicsweredebated),neitherformatallowsthereadertounderstandthe fullcontextofaparticulardebate.This is of no small importance, because opinions ofparticipantsinthenegotiationsaboutparticularmat-tersshiftedassurroundingquestionswereansweredonewayoranother. Other digital projects

WhereastheComparativeConstitutionsProjecthaspioneeredthecomparisonanddisplayoffinishedcon-stitutional texts (Elkins and Ginsburg, 2005), andsomeotherwebprojectshaveattemptedtomakethetextoftheUnitedStatesconstitutioneasiertonavigate(Surden,2015),ourprojectfocusesinsteadonthepro-cessofnegotiation.OtherprojectshaveattemptedtoovercomethelimitationsoftheConvention’srecordsbygivingusersnarrativeoutlinesofthekeyeventsinawaythatcanguidetheirreading(Lloyd,2016;Lin-der,2016;EDSITEment,2016).Moregenerally,web-sites tracking theprogressofParliamentarydebateshavefocusedonmilestonemomentsinthehistoryoftexts,ratherthanlettinguserstrackthedetailofadoc-ument’s evolution (Parliament, 2016; Tauberer,2004).

Challenges Therecordsrelatingtoformalnegotiationsaretyp-

icallyasetofminutesthatrecordofproposalsandthe

votestakenuponthem.Theprincipalaimofthosere-cordingtheminutesistofacilitatetherecord-keepingprocessnecessaryduringtheworkofcommittees,notto provide later readerswith an easyway to recon-structanyparticularmoment. Each formalproposaltoamendadocumenthasatleasttwocontextsthatarerelevant to readers—whatdoes thedocument looklikewhentheamendmentisproposed?whatdoesthedocumentlooklikewhentheamendmentisapprovedor rejected? Due to the nature of committee work,thesecontextsmaydiffersignificantly.Makingsenseof these records, therefore, poses a significantmemory-burdenonreaders.Detailedandspecificdis-cussionof issuespresentedbytheserecords isham-peredbytheneedforauthorstoprovidetheirownre-constructionofelementsofthisprocess,presentedinanarrativeformthatisnecessarilypartialandcanit-selfbecomedifficultforreaderstofollow.

Thisproblemmighthavebeenpartiallyaddressedusingcreativere-purposingofeitherversion-controlsystems designed for computer-science applications(suchasthetoolsrcs(GNU,2013),git(SoftwareFree-dom Conservancy, 2016), or mercurial (Mercurial,2016))orelsethecreationofalayeredXHTMLdocu-ment (TheUniversity ofVirginiaPress,2009).How-ever,werejectedthesesolutionsasbeingeitherinca-pableoffullycapturingthenatureofthesourcemate-rialorelseaslikelytoresultinafragileplatformthatwouldhavebeentoomuchtied to thespecificdocu-ments andunsuitable formore general applications.Sincefutureworkwillcomparedifferentnegotiations,amoregenericplatformthatcouldworkwithavarietyofsourceswithminimalnewcodingwasrequired.

Our solution Quill is anewlydevelopedplatform for the study

andpresentationofformalnegotiations.Itwasdevel-opedinitiallywithaviewtopresentingtherecordsofthe1787FederalConventionthatcreatedtheConsti-tutionof theUnitedStates,butwasdesignedtobeagenericplatformapplicabletoawiderangeofmateri-als, including the creation of constitutions, treaties,and legislation. The model captures formal negotia-tions— that is thosewhere there is a procedure ofconsidering and deciding upon discrete suggestionsforthewordingofdocuments,andwhereminutescap-turingthesedeliberationshavebeentaken.

Aninnovationwastopresentnotmerelytherecon-structionitselfbuttointegrateapublishingplatformthatwould allowauthors topresent their own com-mentary on thematerial in a way that would allow

analysis to be presented alongside specific eventswithinthetimeline.

Links torelevantmaterialheldonotherwebsites(forexample,imagesoftheoriginalmanuscripts)aresimilarly presented to userswhere relevant. In thisway, the website integrates with existing materials,enhancingtheirvalueaswellasitsownandavoidingduplicationofeffort.Weencouragesuchco-operationwithotherprojects throughmachine-readable inter-faces,aflexiblepermissionssystemandasystemofre-sourcecollectionsthatallowthird-partiestomanagelinkstotheirownassetsandcontrolhowtheyappearwithinourplatform.

Forthe2016releasewereliedonthe1911editionoftheConventionRecordspublishedbyFarrand,eventhoughweknowthesetobeimperfecttranscriptionsofthesurvivingmanuscripts.Thischoiceallowedustofocusonthedevelopmentofthesoftwareplatform.TheQuill Platform is capable of presentingdifferentversionsofthesameevent,andfutureworkusingtheoriginal manuscripts will refine our presentation oftherecords.

Supporting information-seeking and exploration

Negotiations of this type are extremely complexandassistinguserstoaccesstheinformationtheyre-quireisachallenge.Inourpublicinterfaces,wehaveguideduserstoaccessmaterialinseveralways.Toac-climatizeuserstotheideaofnavigatingthehistoryofanevolving text,wepresentaSecretary’sDesk view,whichallowsuserstonavigatethestateofdocumentsastheyexistedat theendofeachcommitteesession(seeFigure1).

Figure 1: The Secretary’s Desk for the Committee of the

Whole on the 30 May 1787

Thisviewhidesmuchofthecomplexityofthene-gotiations,butallowsnewuserstoquicklygrasptheconceptofourreconstruction.Wealsopresentvisual-izationsthatallowuserstoexplorethestructureofne-gotiations through a variety of tree-diagrams (Her-man, et al. 2000) (see Figure 2) and sunburst-style(Stasko,etal.2000)visualizations.

Theroleofindividualsandspecificdelegations,aswellasvotingpatterns,arepresentedinseparatevis-ualizations. Alloftheseviewsguideuserswhoneedmoredetaildowntoviewsthatpresenttheworkofin-dividualcommitteesessionsmomentbymoment.Us-ers looking for information on a specific topic areguided towardsasearch tool. Inaddition,userscanalso navigate the platform through a variety of re-sourceandcommentarycollections,makingitpossibletoprovideuserswithamoreguidedexperience.

Conclusions and future work The process of negotiating the constitution was

complicated(wehavemodelledcloseto4,000discreteevents),andourpresentationtranscendsthepossibil-itiesofnarrativeaccountswhilemakingaccesstoandintelligibilityoftheextantsourcesmuchquickerand

ofgreaterutilityforabroadrangeofusers.Themodelsystemitselfiscontent-agnosticandcouldbeusedtomodelawiderangeofsimilarprocesses.Futureworkwill continue to enhance the user experience boththroughrefinementofthevisualizationsanduserin-terface,andthroughthecreationofguidedviewsintothematerialincollaborationwithothers,aswellasex-pandingtherangeofmaterial.

Wider public engagement and education is a keyaim of this project. We are collaboratingwith non-profit organizations in the United States to developguided views suitable for classroom use and inte-gratedintoexistingcurriculummaterials.

Figure 2: An Activity View showing the work of the whole

1787 Convention showing the hierarchical relationship be-tween events, documents, and committees

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