Researching Australian Literature in the Digital Age AustLit www'austlit'edu'au

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Researching Australian Literature in the Digital
AgeAustLit www.austlit.edu.au
Kerry Kilner The University of Queensland
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Underpinning Goals

• To establish a full record of the nations
  literature
• To reduce duplication of research effort and
  encourage collaboration in the field
• To provide tools to support research and
  scholarship
• To promote access to Australian writing

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History

• 1998 Partnership built between 8 universities
  the National Library of Australia
• 1999 Research Infrastructure funding application
  submitted
• 2000-2003 Australian Research Council and
  partner funding achieved
• Funding Mix
• Australian Research Council - 1.3 million
• University Partners - 1.8 million plus in kind
  assistance
• As a point of comparison
• One Mass Spectrometer costs 10 million
• 2004 Self funding

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Partners / Research Leaders

• University of Queensland - John Hay, Janine
  Schmidt David Carter
• Uni of NSW - Bruce Bennett Paul Eggert
• Monash - John Arnold
• Flinders Uni - Gus Worby Lyn Jacobs
• Deakin Uni - Wenche Ommundsen
• Uni of Sydney - Elizabeth Webby Ross Coleman
• Uni of Western Australia - Dennis Haskell, Delys
  Bird, Toby Burrows
• Canberra Uni - Belle Alderman
• NLA Margy Burn

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AustLit the nuts and bolts

• AustLit is
• A database of information on agents, works,
  subjects relating to Australian literature
• A records management system for 600,000 records
  with complex structures and relationships
• An access point for appropriate full text and
  interoperability with appropriate external
  resources
• AustLit uses
• A distributed, 100 web based content authoring,
  review and management system
• XML syntax to represent a complex data model and
  enable repurposing of data

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Data Provenance

• Previous projects / pre-existing content
• AUSTLIT Australian literary database (1988-1999)
  Current and retrospective indexing of periodical
  based material.
• The Australias Literary Heritage Project (1995
  -1999)
• The Bibliography of Australian Literature Project
  and the List of Australian Writers
• Drama
• Writers from a multicultural background
• Western Australian and South Australian writing
• Australias Literary Responses to Asia

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New Content Areas Covered

• Children's literature
• Full Text
• Scholarly electronic text and image service
• NLAs PANDORA Archive for digital content

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Content Development Model

• Contemporary material
• The national bibliography
• Special research projects
• Full text interoperability

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AustLit Home Page
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Agent Record
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Basic Search
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Advanced Search
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Textual history and context

• Tracking the history of a text
• Representing the history of the text
• Showing the contextualisation, interrelations and
  links

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Contextualisation
By whom?
Male or female?
Under what name or pseudonym ?
Inspired by what?
What heritage/ethnicity?
Where?
What form ?
What setting ?
When ?
What influences ? (another author another work a
place a period an event)
Work
What genre?
Creation
What subject ?
What type ?
Characteristics of different versions?
Reception/reputation
Influences exerted?
Features of different publications?
Critical reception?
Works generated?
Awards won?
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Lilian's Story
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Evening Alone at Bunyah
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Bad Debts
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McAuley, James
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Australian Songs for Australian Children
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(No Transcript)
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Special Research Subsets
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Australian Magazines of the 20th Century
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Vision A Literary Quarterly
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London Aphrodite
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Opportunities Plans

• Emerging research and scholarship - many new
  areas of interrogation
• Interoperability with new resources Australian
  Dictionary of Biography, digital mss collections
  archives.
• Various publications in different formats eg.
  BAL Newsletter subsets journal backsets
  Westerly and Australian Literature Studies.

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The AustLit Newsletter
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AustLit www.austlit.edu.au
Kerry Kilner The University of Queensland
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List of Works
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Work Record
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Link to Full Text
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Link to Full Text