Woolf Online - Features
My favorite feature is the textual option provided for readers who want to look at the scanned manuscript image alongside the typescript draft rendering. However, considering the objective of the site is to emphasize the process of writing, what might be equally useful is an option for collating the different witnesses of text. An option for collation might give the reader a better sense of how the text was altered over time.
In keeping with the theme of "Time Passes," readers also have the option of examining Woolf's manuscript by day. Woolf wrote the draft over the course of a month in 1926 during the first General Strike in London. The "Calendar" feature allows readers to see a complete list of the site materials written by Woolf and contemporaries on that day. The site links daily transcripts with primary sources, which include diary entries, letters, and newspaper articles, written by Woolf and contemporaries on the same day. Shillingsburg suggests that "one can literally watch Virginia Woolf each day, write the manuscript, write in her diary, pen letters, and compose other things [. . .] and, just a click away, one finds accounts of the general strike that was going on practically outside the writer's window." Given that the aim is to allow visitors a better understanding of Woolf's writing experience, it might be helpful to make the links that reference the contextual material more apparent to visitors. Future work on the site might also allow visitors to zoom in on the included newspaper images. In addition, the scanned images are numerous, and do not include metadata, which may be an issue for scholars who hope to use or reference the images in other projects.
Alongside essays by Woolf, the site includes articles by scholars Michael Lackey, Marion Dell and Alison Light. The site also includes a bibliography of online and monograph sources for further research on Woolf. These sections would be ideal for future collaborative opportunity. Visitors could provide annotations on sources and suggestions for further reading on Woolf.
In keeping with the theme of "Time Passes," readers also have the option of examining Woolf's manuscript by day. Woolf wrote the draft over the course of a month in 1926 during the first General Strike in London. The "Calendar" feature allows readers to see a complete list of the site materials written by Woolf and contemporaries on that day. The site links daily transcripts with primary sources, which include diary entries, letters, and newspaper articles, written by Woolf and contemporaries on the same day. Shillingsburg suggests that "one can literally watch Virginia Woolf each day, write the manuscript, write in her diary, pen letters, and compose other things [. . .] and, just a click away, one finds accounts of the general strike that was going on practically outside the writer's window." Given that the aim is to allow visitors a better understanding of Woolf's writing experience, it might be helpful to make the links that reference the contextual material more apparent to visitors. Future work on the site might also allow visitors to zoom in on the included newspaper images. In addition, the scanned images are numerous, and do not include metadata, which may be an issue for scholars who hope to use or reference the images in other projects.
Alongside essays by Woolf, the site includes articles by scholars Michael Lackey, Marion Dell and Alison Light. The site also includes a bibliography of online and monograph sources for further research on Woolf. These sections would be ideal for future collaborative opportunity. Visitors could provide annotations on sources and suggestions for further reading on Woolf.
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