Cather Electronic Archive: Providing Online Access to Catheriana
by Katherine Walter, Chair, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Digital Initiatives & Special Collections
The Willa Cather Electronic Archive
is an online research and
teaching website produced by the
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Cather Project and the UNL Libraries'
Electronic Text Center. Currently
located at http://cather.unl.edu
and on the E-Text Centers digital
archives at http://libr.unl.edu:2000,
the Willa Cather Electronic Archive
is a work in progress. The site will be
moved to a digital humanities research
server in the UNL Libraries this summer,
so the first URL may change. If
so, people will be directed to the new
location.
In 2003, the Center initiated a
number of technological changes on
the site that are largely invisible to
users. Three of Cather's novels, Alexander's
Bridge, O Pioneers!, and My
Antonia have been encoded following
the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
document type definition, and using
eXtensible Markup Language (XML).
By following international standards
of encoding, Cather's writings will
be more easily searched, presented,
and migrated as new technologies are
developed. Gradually, all online texts
on the Cather Electronic Archive will
be converted from HTML to XML and
presented using XSLT stylesheets.
The transformations on the website
are being performed by faculty and
staff in the Electronic Text Center, and
new texts are being created by faculty
and interns in Cather studies.
In anticipation of the 9th International
Seminar, information about
the Bread Loaf, Vermont, conference
was presented online. The Archive
will continue to provide information
about upcoming Cather events,
including registration information.
As a side benefit of events, "feature
articles" on travel have been created.
For example, in conjunction with
the 9th International Seminar, many
scholars from the Northeastern U.S.
developed tour information concerning
Cather sites that expanded the
online resources available for Cather
enthusiasts.
As a service to scholars, some
archival materials are gradually being
added to the Willa Cather Electronic
Archive. UNL has been digitizing
many photographs of Cather and of
places that she traveled. Images from
the Southwick and Slote collections
are being mounted online as copyright
permissions or physical rights are
verified. Though many of the photos
are from the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln Libraries Archives/Special
Collections, some are from the collections
of the Nebraska State Historical
Society and the Willa Cather Pioneer
Memorial. Information about how to
contact the institutions for permissions
to use images is provided.
Whats next? Scholars continue
to work on the novels, and the next
novel that we plan to encode is One
of Ours. Work will continue on short
stories, and a project relating to Cather's
journalism is planned. Links to
related online sites will be expanded,
and we hope to continue developing
the sections of the Cather Electronic
Archive that are not yet live. The
Cather Projects Electronic Archive
welcomes contributions of images for
the site as long as rights information is
provided. For digitization specifications
or for more information, please
contact kwalter1@unl.edu.
Contributions of original text (such as articles) should be sent to the Cather Project for review.
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