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Composing Collaborative Feminist Recovery Projects with Scalar

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Paths: Navigating Nonlinear Possibilities and Controlled Chaos
Just as the Parts of a Scalar book structure the relationship between form and content for the creator, they also constitute a navigation system that enables and constrains meaning-making possibilities for a user of the Scalar book. This is what we are calling Paths, attempting to highlight the dynamic options for navigation and meaning-making available to feminist historiographers in Scalar.
A user can typically choose between reading a Scalar text in chronological chapter order through paths or jumping around to explore themes and keywords of a book through tags, visualizations, or other hypertext features. Each navigational option can be accessed by the user at any point in their reading (via the toolbar at the top of the book), so users can also move back and forth between navigational pathways and explore the project in the sequence that their curiosity or learning takes them. The non-linear navigational options clearly build on previous innovations in hypertext theory and functionality, such as George Landow's work in the 1990s on "The Victorian Web" and Jane Yellowlees Douglas' (2001) work reading Joyce's hypertext novels. As in these other early hypertext projects, Scalar books allow each individual reader to participate in the ongoing creation of knowledge surrounding women writers and recovered texts as they navigate potentially infinite networks and layers of research and experiences within a Scalar project. The reading and navigating process can thus be interpreted as a potentially liberatory practice that encourages unique modes of understanding archived texts and related content. We begin here by discussing the more linear navigation option represented by path connections before exploring the interactivity of hypertext and metadata.
Linear Navigation Options
The reader of a Scalar book usually has the option of navigating the text according to what equates to a traditional set of chapters through paths that take you through the text in a linear sequence. Some texts, like Kuhn (2013) early and influential Scalar text, might have multiple paths that are set up as separate and parallel approaches to a given text or subject, while others might embed paths within other paths, creating the effect of chapters and subchapters (like the present webtext).
This basic navigation option most closely resembles the experience of reading a print book and best allows for the creator’s intended layout of content to be represented. At the end of any given page, the user may be given options to explore a topic in additional depth through subchapters that are part of their own path or to continue with the primary text by moving on to the next chapter in the book’s main path. On the backend of Scalar, this distinction is represented by the choice of whether a page is part of a path or contains its own path (or both).
In our an(ti)thology, our intended layout of the chapters was as follows: (1) “Selections,” (2) “Themes,” (3) “Editor Reflections,” (4) “A Handy Map,” and (5) “Timeline.” Each section contains its own sub-chapters, structured by additional paths. For example, the chapter titled “Selections” contains sub-paths dedicated to each woman writer in our an(ti)thology. Within the sub-path for each author, there is typically a landing page, followed by an introduction, and the manuscript in PDF form. These sub-paths are also part of the larger path through the whole book, much like chapters of a traditional print book.
In addition to following the prompts at the bottom of each page to follow these paths, chapters can be also accessed through the Table of Contents, which is always available in the dropdown menu bar from the hamburger icon in the top right corner of the screen. This menu can return the reader to any other place in the text, which is especially useful if the reader is trying to return to a previous chapter’s general landing page or a specific sub-chapter. It also functions as a heuristic showing the reader one visualization (among several) of how the contents of a book fit together as a whole.
While these basic navigation options represent linear modes of thinking that might be the default version of navigation for the reader, Scalar invites us to explore diverse navigational experiences. Relying on the Table of Contents and traditional page-flipping is one variation for readers to fall back on if they are still building confidence using the digital anthology, as we did in both our own sample project and in the present webtext. Indeed, we can refer back to Biesecker's (1992) reimagination of “techne” to think of this strategy as its own form of resistance as creators and users “make do” with new and unfamiliar technologies. Once the creator or reader has equipped themselves with the necessary technical tools, they can explore nonlinear modes of navigation and further engage in the action of “challeng[ing] systems of power and norms set up through hegemonic principles” (Almjeld, et al., 2016) by resisting or reconfiguring these linear structures. At the least, composers engage all available design options--linear or otherwise--as intentional, political decisions with rhetorical consequences (Buckley, 1986).
Nonlinear Navigation Options
In addition to more linear navigation provided through paths, readers of Scalar books can also navigate online content non-linearly by taking advantage of the hypertext and metadata tools embedded in the interface. The following navigation options allow for the reader to interact with content in novel ways, thus opening up new structured relationships that may inspire different understandings of feminist historiography. The Scalar 2 User Guide reminds us that the structure of the book “becomes especially powerful when it's used not just as a way to organize content in a publication, but as a way to model theoretical relationships.” Tags, visualizations, links, and the search bar function each encourage new variations of relationships and readerships within Scalar books.
Tags
Tags, as the name suggests, are labels that an author can add to a page on Scalar to identify it in relation to a broader theme. Any page or media file can be tagged by a specific word, enabling for the reader and anthologizer alike to reveal important relationships, connect media with the text, and cross-reference various themes across time and location within the broader Scalar book.

Tags help both anthologizers and readers identify key themes within the Scalar book. For example, reviewing the tags generated in relation to one an(ti)thology selection encouraged other groups to consider whether that same term might be relevant to their own selection. In turn, when reading about Dinah Mulock Craik’s upbringing, a reader might click on the tag “Religion,” and bring Wollstonecraft’s view of the Church and its implications for her work Original Stories into relationship with Murlock, creating connections across time and space.

According to the Scalar 2 User Guide, tags “not only identify commonalities amongst heterogeneous items” but also can be understood as “[their] own full-fledged piece of content.” This dual function is enabled by the fact that tags have the potential to produce particularly generative visualizations and categorizations.   Readers can create their own winding path through the material by following tags rather than paths, exploring particular keywords and connections of interest to them, or by using the visualizations these tags generate to pursue their own interpretive connections and navigational possibilities.

Visualizations
As discussed in “Parts: Form and Content,” visualizations of both paths and tags can be purposefully embedded within a page, as content. These visualizations are also always available to readers in the upper lefthand corner of the screen in the pop-up dropdown menu next to the Table of Contents, where they function primarily as a navigational tool. For example, the path visualization below shows all the paths in our an(ti)thology project. The reader can click on filled circles to uncover its set of paths and click on the circle again to hide them. The title of each item links to the content, whether it be a media file or page nested within the content.
Other visualizations provide further navigational possibilities, offering novel perspectives on the larger work and featuring those relationships as content in their own right. In this way, they transcend the categories that creators might want to impose on a Scalar text. They refuse distinctions between the texts, disrupt linearity, and create alternative ways of moving through content. For instance, the map and timeline visualization give a sense of distance from the reader’s embodiment. Other visualizations, such as the feature that can map all pages in the book to a “thoughtmap” or “word cloud,” represent the reflective aspect of the structured relationships.

While the visual web may appear confusing to a reader who did not participate in the creation of the pages, the navigational options enable a departure from an assumption about structure, revealing the alternative designs and approaches to content that illuminate any design or navigation as political (Buckley). In turn, the reader is revealed as an active composer of the content with political stakes as well.
Links
A more familiar form of hypertext interaction, simple hyperlinks are another mechanism by which readers might navigate the content of a Scalar book. In the context of a Scalar book, such links might allow for direct bibliographic integration to sources within the text, or intertextual portals to the broader world wide web. In the case of Frances Power Cobbe’s selection, for example, referenced articles are hyperlinked on the page, and each hyperlink directs to a bibliography page we created within the Scalar book. A link can also direct a reader to any URL to create broader intertextual connections. For example, they might provide context for a figure mentioned in conjunction with the analysis, such as the one used in the introduction to Eliza Bradley.
Hyperlinks at first seemed less exciting to us as a functionality, and we tended to favor embedding as way to feature content and facilitate intertextual connections. For example, because of its strong investment in digital archiving projects and interconnections, Scalar allows a creator to embed not only archival material but even full digital archives within a Scalar book. This seemed like an exciting utilization of the rich intertextual possibilities of the platform. In short, being able to embed everything did not mean that we should. In the end, hyperlinks proved to be an effective option for much of our design goals. As David Balcom and John Tolva (1996) explain, hyperlinks cede control of the hypertext to the reader in way comparable to other navigational options described here, further representing the fluidity of navigation offered by the Scalar platform.
Search Bar Function
Another familiar but important navigational option is the Scalar search bar. While some scholars have criticized such search functions for their ability to lift spatial constraints, interrupting the attention that comes from reading or searching a physical book for key terms in their context of use, we have found that the digital navigation options such as the search bar also enable users to engage in their own meaningful interpretative activities not anticipated by a text’s creators. As Jeff Rice (2013) writes, “to perform a search might be to write a text; the linking, clicking and keyword following search allows for would be rhetorical strategies writers engage with when inventing and composing ideas within ever receding horizons."
Thus, a goal of using the search function in the context of a feminist recovery project might be to engage in a critical practice of making connections and finding contradictions between chapters. As with visualizations and links, the labor of exploring a book nonlinearly through the search bar, rather than traditionally from front to back, brings back the density of the text. Searching through titles, descriptions, key terms or citations, one can create highlights, form combinations, and directly access different ideas to come back to in the text.
Paths: Flexibility in Navigation
Some scholars have criticized digital archive’s ability to lift spatial constraints, because it interrupts attention that comes from reading or searching a physical book for key terms. However, the digital navigation system enables a unique contextualization system in which users can engage with in a unique interpretive light. Jeff Rice writes, “to perform a search might be to write a text; the linking, clicking and keyword following search allows for would be rhetorical strategies writers engage with when inventing and composing ideas within ever receding horizons” (Rice, np). The goal of this digital resource is to engage in a critical practice of making connections and finding contradictions between chapters. The labor of exploring a book nonlinearly, rather than traditionally from front to back, brings back the density of the text. One can create highlights, form combinations, and easily access different ideas to come back to in the text.
Search Bar Function

Along with Paths, the search feature of Scalar allows the user to navigate the text through a title, description, key term or citation. Here's the logo:

To search for names of title pages, the default search selection is "Title & Description". To search for specific key terms or citation, select "All Fields and Metadata". For example, if searching for "Fancher" the user can enter the word into the search bar in the upper right hand corner.