Blog #17: Hailey's Review

I can't seem to find the Scottish Chapbooks Project website, so I will just review what I saw from the presentation.

Hailey is one member of the group which is digitizing and exhibiting information on the chapbooks collection at the University of Guelph. The Chapbooks Project is a pilot project, as digitization of chapbooks is thus far unheard of. There is very little that has been done with these documents so far. Each member of the group has focused on a specific theme which can be found within the chapbooks. Hailey's theme is superheroes. Mainly, she wanted to address whether or not superheroes had timeless qualities. She did this by comparing characters in Scottish chapbooks to those in modern-day comic books. She focused on William Wallace and Captain America and Queen Elizabeth as Wonder Woman. However, Hailey mentioned that she had a hard time finding enough information on Queen Elizabeth to make a definitive link between her and Wonder Woman. In order to define what a hero would have been considered during the time chapbooks were published, Hailey extracted key characteristics from an account of the Battle of Roslin. In addition to including images of the chapbooks examined and information on her chosen theme, Hailey also included a list of additional, related sources.

One thing that I think would have been nice is the inclusion of the chapbooks, entirely digitized. Many of the group members expressed their desire to do this, however, the University did not want the entire books available on this website. They did mention that the fully digitized books would probably be available in the future, as another Library and Archives initiative.
I think that Hailey picked a really interesting theme. The fact that she made it relevant to today's society was a really strong point. It's too bad that she seemed to have some issues with Queen Elizabeth, in particular, as she only had two examples. More examples would have strengthened her overall thesis/purpose.
Overall, this project seemed to have a lot of potential. I would have liked to have seen the completed website in order to see what she added since her presentation.