Laurie N. Taylor April 11th, 2008
The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature has many amazing materials, but I’ve never before seen one quite like A Story of Stops. The book itself is wonderfully illustrated, so wonderfully in fact that I haven’t yet read it. I can’t get over the idea of a “story of stops,” written in 1891 for children. A “story of stops” for children or all ages now could be many things–a story of missed messages and miscommunications (stops in communication, stops in transmission, especially with telegraphs), travel and adventure stories (stops along a train route, or an exploration), and so much more. But a “story of stops” in 1891? I almost don’t want to read it and want to instead imagine what it could be.
The subject terms only encourage me further:
Children — Juvenile fiction. — Conduct of life
Conduct of life — Juvenile fiction.
Adventure and adventurers — Juvenile fiction.
Voyages and travels — Juvenile fiction.
Goblins — Juvenile fiction.
Billiards — Juvenile fiction.
Twins — Juvenile fiction.
Friendship — Juvenile fiction.
Sisters — Juvenile fiction.
Bldn — 1891.
A Story of Stops is available for all online, from those wanting to read the story or those simply wanting to explore the many possibilities of the story. A Story of Stops was written by Mrs. Davidson of Tulloch, and a Google search explains that Mrs. Davidson is Gwendoline Davidson, and that she also wrote “Kitten Goblins,” which I can’t wait to see.
Laurie N. Taylor April 10th, 2008
The University of Florida has a collection of French Revolutionary pamphlets and a small few have been digitized and are now loading online. The full collection is quite large, and one of the digital collection items is a list of all of the pamphlets. It’s wonderful to see these materials online because having them online allows people to see what they are and to use them. The list of pamphlets is helpful on a basic level, like so many bibliographies and lists of holdings, but being able to see and use materials is exponentially better than only knowing that an archive has an object.
Laurie N. Taylor April 7th, 2008
The Digital Library Center has been working on getting legal materials online for the Caribbean and from other areas in our collections. Most recently, we’ve added to our law collection with Hansard’s British Parliamentary Debates, which are one of the best sources of the political record for the United Kingdom [1803-1891]. We’re almost done digitizing the 2nd series [1820-1830, 25 volumes] of the Debates, and later projects will digitize the rest provided they’re still in need. The University of Southampton is also working on Parliamentary Publications and related materials.
In addition to Hansard’s, the University of Florida Digital Collections includes Florida Law, with publications from the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Water Law, a cooperative project to develop and maintain a history of water management in Florida.
The Digital Collections also include law and legal materials from many Caribbean countries and organizations:
- Diario de sesiones del Congreso de la Republica de Cuba (Journal of Sessions of the Congress of the Republic of Cuba), with the cumulation of the sessions as well, Gaceta oficial de la Republica de Cuba (the Offical Gazette of the Republic of Cuba), and Diario de sesiones de la Comision consultiva de la republica de Cuba bajo la administracion provisional de los Estados Unido (Journal of meetings of the Advisory Commission of the Republic of Cuba under the interim administration of the United States)
- Trinidad and Tobago revised ordinances (1950) which “contains the ordinances of the colony in force on the 31st day of December, 1950, exclusive of those reserved by ordinance no. 23 of 1949 and by subsequent proclamations”
- Materials from CARICOM (the Caribbean Community Secretariat)
- Belize Weekly Newsletter, published by the Government Information Services
- Revue de la Société de législation (Legislative Journal of Haiti), La Constitution hatienne de 1889 et sa re?vision (a work on constitutional law in Haiti), and Proclamation par Toussaint Louverture, General en Chef de l’armee de Saint-Domingue, aux Administrations Municipales de la Colonie et a ses Concitoyen (Proclamation by Toussaint Louverture, General-in-Chief of the army in Santo Domingo, the Municipal Government of the Colony and its Concitoyen)
- Official Gazette of Barbados which is especially interesting when read along with newspapers, including the earlier Royal Gazette and Colonist Daily and the much earlier Royal Gazette: Bermuda Commercial and General Advertiser and Recorder because it shows how some of the laws and concerns developed over time
Along with the legal materials for the Caribbean, the Digital Library of the Caribbean includes newspapers (with historical newspapers like The Mid-Ocean from Hamilton, Bermuda in 1899, more recent news with Unite published in English and French from the Haitian Unity Council and the Dominica Star, and recent newspapers as well), audio, video, and all sorts of other materials like Annales du Conseil Souverain de la Martinique (Annals of the Sovereign Council of Martinique) and Nouvelliste, a daily journal for Haitian commercial, agricultural, and literary information.
Even with all of these materials, we’re actively much, much more including British Caribbean materials for countries when they were British Colonies. As we load more materials, it’s really interesting to see how the law is influenced by and impacts everyday life in the newspapers and art in the literature of the time and after.
Laurie N. Taylor April 4th, 2008
I’m currently at the Center for Literary Studies (CLC) Codework: Exploring relations between creative writing practices and software engineering workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, held at West Virginia University (and it’s April 3-6, 2008 and there’s more on it here). Ted Nelson, coiner of the word hypertext and media studies visionary spoke. Sandy Baldwin opened by introducing Nelson - describing Nelson as a luminary, and having him speak as astronomical - and then describing how Nelson influenced his own English practice and work.
Nelson began by explaining his preference for open ended speaking, and then introduced his new book-in-progress “geeks bearing gifts” on the false rhetoric surrounding current software. Nelson continued on, explaining that current software and applications aren’t about technology, but are really packages of conventions selected by someone, with an agenda, and mentioned OOXML as an example, that he’s been fascinated with making a document system and not the fake paper simulators we have now, and he showed latest version of the Xanadu Project (xanarama.net). Nelson’s reputation as a visionary and a great speaker are well earned, so well earned that I stopped taking notes after realizing that my notes would not do his presentation justice in the slightest. I believe the presentation was recorded, though, so once that’s posted I’ll add a link to it.