CTB: 'Corpora, Text Editions and Sources'
CTB was founded in 2000 under the name Centrum voor Teksteditie en Bronnenstudie (Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies). In 2025, a new interpretation was given to the acronym, based on the Dutch words describing three main pillars of our work: Corpora, Text editions and Sources. CTB is the department for digital documentation of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (KANTL). CTB conducts fundamental and applied scientific research in the disciplines of scholarly editing, text editing, dialectology, and historical corpus research. Special attention is given to the use of digital technology in linguistic research. In this field, CTB is a unique institution in Belgium and the Low Countries as well as an international front-runner.
Over the years, CTB has developed into the centre of expertise in Flanders in the field of scholarly editing. It has become an internationally respected pioneer in the innovative and advanced use of ICT and text technology in linguistic and literary research.
Main activities
A major component is the DALF project – Digital Archive of Letters in Flanders – which develops a theoretical and technical framework based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) for the construction of a corpus of encoded descriptions and transcriptions of letters, with a strong focus on the correspondence of Flemish authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From this textual database, annotated reading and scholarly editions can easily be generated (online or in print) of the archived correspondence. These provide linguists and literary scholars as well as historians and other researchers with important data on the lives and work of the correspondents, and on the literary, political and historical climate in which they operated. At the same time, (socio-)linguists, historical linguists, linguistic geographers, and scholars engaged in diachronic and synchronic research can generate rich datasets from the textual database. Such a corpus can serve as the basis for (comparative) stylistic research, statistical analysis, and lexicology. Central to this is the document architecture and the consistent encoding of the corpus guaranteed by the DALF DTD. Wherever possible, the correspondence is also digitised and stored as image files with the necessary metadata to optimally guarantee preservation, accessibility, and interoperability. In this way, CTB contributes to the digitisation of cultural heritage and works in a complementary and constructive manner with the various (literary), public and private archives that often lack the required expertise. The DALF Guidelines for the Description and Encoding of Modern Correspondence Material, developed within the DALF project, are used, among others, for the encoding and publication of correspondence in various institutions, institutes, and research centres.
In addition to letter editions, CTB focuses on uncovering the genealogical process of poetry and prose. A fine-grained annotation and typology of corrections and variants between manuscript, typescript, proofs, and successive editions make it possible to present these variants in a clear and accessible way in a digital variant edition. Here too, we emphasise the maximum accessibility of digitised source material through the advanced use of metadata standards in imaging technology, such as IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework). This open set of standards makes it possible to enrich and share digital images via metadata.
Finally, through the creation and enrichment of digital linguistic corpora, CTB fulfils an important objective of KANTL: the preservation and accessibility of Flemish linguistic heritage.
A new beginning for CTB
Following the renewed activity of CTB in 2024–2025 and the accompanying name change (Corpora, Text Editions and Sources), the digital documentation department of KANTL aims to build further on the expertise acquired in the past. Existing digital resources have been enhanced and made sustainable; we are making steady progress on the publication of more than 8,000 letters from the Gezelle Archive; an extensive variant edition of Elias of het gevecht met de nachtegalen by Maurice Gilliams has been published; and new prose variant editions are in preparation. In the future, CTB also intends to continue its commitment to the preservation and accessibility of linguistic sources through the publication of bibliographies and linguistic databases, and by reporting research results on language and literature in collaboration with partner organisations.
