UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen (1954–2024), German philologist and markup language specialist, had a profound influence on the development of markup languages and the digital humanities.

Sperberg-McQueen spoke and published widely on the nature of formal languages, markup systems, semantic theory, and computational linguistics. He was passionate about developing tools for digital preservation of cultural heritage, and programmed extensively in an array of languages including XSLT, XQuery, R, Alloy, and Prolog. Alongside his official role in humanities digital preservation projects, and in working groups that defined and standardized technologies such as XML, he acted as an unofficial mentor to numerous markup practitioners and digital humanists.

At the time of his sudden death in 2024, Sperberg-McQueen left behind a digital corpus of theoretical writings, technical documentation, prototypes, scholarly correspondence, and research notes. Amongst these materials are writings of considerable significance both for the history of technologies such as SGML and XML, and for ongoing research in the digital humanities.

The Michael Sperberg-McQueen Digital Nachlass aims to ensure the preservation of Sperberg-McQueen’s digital legacy in all its forms by creating an accessible archive, built to modern standards of digital preservation. All materials will be digitized according to international best practices, providing multiple access layers.

In order to achieve its goals, the project will require external funding. This will naturally be sought from research councils and other typical sources of academic grants, but donations from individuals and companies are also very much needed, and warmly encouraged. These will help pay for the time of researchers, graduate students, and other necessary staff as they plan and put into practice this exciting project. Donations for these purposes can be made via the University of Cologne. 

1. Direct donations

For donations up to € 1,000 where the donor does not need documentation for tax purposes, the funds can be transferred to:

Universität zu Köln
Sparkasse KölnBonn
DE44 3705 0198 1900 6948 35
COLSDE33XXX

with the following information: D-77379-Z-799-141006000 (The Michael Sperberg-McQueen Digital Nachlass).

2. Donations with tax confirmation

For donations up to € 1,000 where the donor does need documentation for tax purposes, please contact us at cmsmcq-infouni-koeln.de. After that, the funds can be transferred to:

Universität zu Köln
Sparkasse KölnBonn
DE44 3705 0198 1900 6948 35
COLSDE33XXX

with the following information: D-77378-Z-799-141006000 (The Michael Sperberg-McQueen Digital Nachlass).

3. Larger donations

For donations over € 1,000, please contact us at cmsmcq-infouni-koeln.de. In such cases the university has to monitor the process more closely for legal reasons. 

Donations which are tax-deductible in the United States can also be made, thanks to the kind assistance of the Text Encoding Initiative. You can find more details here.

The University of Cologne will provide infrastructure for The Michael Sperberg-McQueen Digital Nachlass, and the project is led by two academics from the university’s Department for Digital Humanities:

Jun.-Prof.in Dr. Elisa Cugliana, Digital Humanities

Prof. Dr. Øyvind Eide, Digital Humanities
 

To make contact with the project team, please email cmsmcq-infouni-koeln.de