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	Web Sites of the Month September 1999

	Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture This site is a terrific example of the possibilities that the Web offers for situating texts in their many contexts by surrounding them with other texts and with images and sounds which aid, without dictating, their understanding and analysis. Thus, this extensive collaborative project contains at its centre an electronic version of the first 1852 edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, along with several of Stowe's Prefaces and her robust defence of the novel The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. The culture that the book arose from and addressed is represented by the inclusion of an expanding number of 'Pre-texts' including a range of Christian texts and songs, anti-slavery texts and minstrel songs, each accompanied by a gallery of images. Additionally, the vastly differing reactions to the novel can be explored through the inclusion of a great number of reviews and responses to the book from 1852 to 1900. Moreover, the story's many re-presentations in other media can be examined through the inclusion of the text and images from children's versions, scripts and images from stage versions and clips from four films based on the book. An excellent 'Screening Room' function allows the viewing of similar scenes from different film versions of the novel side-by-side. Similarly, individual texts, collections of texts or indeed all of the texts in the archive simulataneously, can be searched for keywords. This vast archive represents an ideal teaching resource that students and teachers can construct their own paths through. Many grand claims are made for the power and usefulness of multimedia, hypertext environments. This site realises them. (SS) http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/
	William of Ockham: Dialogus It might be unusual to highlight a Web site which actually commenced in 1995. However, there are a number of reasons to draw readers' attention to this site which presents an online edition of William of Ockham's Dialogus. First, the third release of the edition was completed in July; secondly, the edition itself comprises material intended for both the student and the researcher of medieval studies; thirdly, the editors have used a number of tools worth noting to create versions suitable for screen and paper presentation. The Dialogus, written soon after 1328, purports to be a discussion between student and teacher on matters of heretics and heresies. The text can be found in a large number of manuscripts and printed editions. This online edition of the Dialogus presents a new edition and translation of the text together with extensive collations of selected sections. The new release includes completed texts for books 1-5 of the first part which are available with drafts and completed texts for parts 2 and 3. Part 3 also includes a draft critical edition prepared using Critical Edition Typesetting, delivered in PDF, and intended for printing. The site includes background and explanatory essays. William of Ocham's Dialogus is funded by the British Academy as part of the Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi series and edited by John Kilcullen and John Scott. Let's hope more critical editions 'in progress' like this become available on the Web. (MF) http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/dialogus/ockdial.html
	Descriptive Bibliography - An Online Tutorial In the field of Textual Criticism there exists a branch of study entitled Descriptive Bibliography, which thoroughly details the physical existence of the text. It is an area that possesses its own language - one that can seem like an undecipherable code - yet it is a code that provides the information necessary to fully catalogue a text. Stephen Ramsay, Assistant Director of the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center, has created a site that, in his words, "endeavors to provide students, literary scholars, book collectors, and other interested parties with a brief introduction to the notational paradigms of traditional descriptive bibliography (quasi-facsimile transcription, collation-formulae, bibliographic reference, and some of the various items found in textual apparatus)." Ramsay is able to do just that through both the detailed content and straightforward navigation of the site. Pitching the information to an audience that is not required to have a foundation in bibliography, the tutorial takes the user step-by-step through the creation of a complete descriptive bibliography of Peter Brubach's 1550 edition of Seven Tragedies of Sophocles. The 'hands-on' tutorial is dependent upon a browser that can read frames (the only drawback to the site) and by choosing one of the elements (title page, colophon, pagination, etc) the user can see an example of the element, can choose "explanation" to see a detailed analysis of the meaning and processing of that element, and can choose "image" to see the physical source of the element. The tutorial takes full advantage of its hypermedia environment, providing the user not only with the necessary analysis of descriptive bibliography procedures, but also the visual access to the source text. This site is a must for anyone interested in the physical description of texts. (KW) http://www.people.virginia.edu/~sjr3a/Bibliography.html
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HTML Author: Stuart Sutherland
This page last modified: 2 September 1999

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