digital collections reflections

from the article by Lee, the term “digital collections” is pretty broad.   so in thinking about the three collections that have proven most useful (if not abused) to me are:

1.  JSTOR – I came across this resource many years ago in a Shakespeare class taught by one of the finest English professors, Dr. Watson at TU.   in a discussion of Hamlet, I threw out the possibilty that the gloomy young Dane was upset by his mother’s sexual relationship with her new hubby because Hamlet feared she might become pregnant, creating a pesky heir to his throne.  Watson sat back while the rest of the class remained focused on the “fact” that Gerty would be well beyond childbearing age.   after all, Hamlet looks a lot like Laurence Oliver, which means his mother must be about 85 and holding, right?   JSTOR had a full-text article from the 1940’s or so titled “Not fat or 30” which proved to be THE piece of scholarly reinforcement that I needed to write a really good final paper.   In the section in which I deftly argued that Getrude’s fecund state adds to the dramatic impetus for the play, Watson wrote “ah. you’ve answered this point nicely” in his margin comments.   that was it.    nicely.   from Watson, that’s like a ticker tape parade complete with a marching band.  JSTOR provides historical perspectives on many A&S subjects.   It can be limited by discipline and the advanced search can limit the results to articles or expand it to include reviews, etc.   the downside, it is accessable only with a log-in, usually provided by a higher-education institution at, what I’m guessing is, a pretty steep cost.

2.  the Perseus Project sponsored by Tufts has a great collection of ancient Greek and Latin texts.   from the main page at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ I click on “Classics” and “texts.”   many of the English translations are pretty poor, BUT the Greek or Latin sections have a really cool little feature that allows you to click on the word and have a pop-up that gives you the grammatical particulars about that word.   when I am not able to find things the disciplined way (a Duckworth’s held together with rubber bands, a duct-taped intermediate lexicon, and a copy of Smythe’s Greek Grammar replete with tear stains) or when I am so confused that my scholarship BECOMES a tragedy littered with the dead bodies of bad traslations, I turn to this great resource.   I then say an Act of Contrition, and apologize to Socrates for being weak and basically cheating.  😦       the downside? – the text is transalliterated into English alphabet.   to read in the actual Greek, a plug-in is available, but I’ve not found the results to be acceptable.

3.   gosh.  digital collections.   I use all kinds of resources, like Webster.com, often – but is that a collection?  I don’t think of it that way.   hmm.   There IS something that I’m interested in, though “favorite” is not how I would describe it.   TU has a whole world of wonder on the fourth floor of McFarlin library.   For years, the items in special collections were shielded from the world and “protected” almost out of existence.   No one knew just what was up there.   it is still happening in fits and starts, but now there is an effort underway to bring this marvelous collection out of the dark and into the digital light.   So far, there is not a lot of “there” there in comparison to other digital projects that have really gotten off the ground, particularly in images.   But what potential – oh my.   so, in its present form, it may be my least favorite digital collection.   but it terms of the possibility that I know is there, and in the mad hope that I can learn enough to contribute to the effort and make it reflective of the fabulous treasure that it really is:    http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/

WAIT!   how could I forget?!!   #3.    the WebMuseum- Paris!   I’ve bookmarked only the artist page, but the main site probably has all kinds of cool stuff that I’ve not had time to discover.    this is great for those little art emergencies that require a person to view a pertinent masterpiece or die.   happens to me a LOT.  bienvenue!    http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/