Odour of Chrysanthemums
Online access to a short
story by D H Lawrence
Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts
Manchester
26 March 2010
Dorothy Johnston
Manuscripts and Special Collections
Introduction
 Digital access at Nottingham:
Background
 The Odour project: Initial pros and cons
 Principal features
 What was achieved
 Questions and Lessons
Digital access at Nottingham
 The holdings
 Manuscripts and Archives
 Special Collections (Rare Books)
 East Midlands Collection (local studies)
 Operation within converged services
 Benefits of digital infrastructure
 Close links with e-learning
 Early digitisation developments
 Project based
 Supported e-learning or awareness raising
 Focus on contextual added value, not images.
Awareness raising
1. Online exhibitions
Awareness raising
2. Spotlight on the Collections gallery
Awareness raising:
3. Collection resource pages
e-learning: Skills for Users
e-learning: Academic Partners
e-learning: Teaching Packs
Lawrence project: Background
 Digital access to Lawrence regularly sought.
 Unsuccessful project bid (2000) plan provided a
potential model and clarified objectives.
 Examined in “Issues in delivering primary source
materials over the internet as resources for research
and learning in the humanities” (E. Archer, MA thesis, University
of Nottingham, 2004).
 English Subject Centre funding to Sean Matthews to
deliver the text with supporting pedagogic materials
for textual, historical and critical study (2005).
D H Lawrence, Odour of
Chrysanthemums
Supporting factors
 Good subject for academic/curatorial collaboration
 Popular short story - widely taught, ‘canonical’
text
 Original sources, both for text and background
 Accessible textual history through critical materials
 Relevant to local and regional community identity
 Potential for outreach and local schools based
learning
 D H Lawrence digitisation a long-term objective
 Proven delivery of e-learning by the team.
Potential issues
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Copyright in text and other IPR issues
Lack of technical or curatorial input to bid for funding
Project management
Capacity for technical delivery
Capacity to research images, contextual enrichment
Fitting academic drivers and timetables into curatorial
operational pressures and existing projects
NB: Other current activities included move of service to new
accommodation.
Development of Odour project:
Principal anticipated features
Aimed at both research and educational audience
Deliver reading texts
Guided comparison of texts, with notes
Critical literature about Odour
Background original material – letters
Background secondary material – e.g. local
context
 Images – photographs etc.
 School lesson plans
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e-learning: texts in transmission
The sources
Corrected proofs
Comparing different versions
Uncorrected proofs (1910)
first publication (1911)
First publication (1911)
First collected edition (1914)
Work with the texts: dialect
Project elements delivered
 Reading texts
 Guided comparison of texts, with notes
 Working with the texts – for students
 Critical literature about Odour
 Further materials – e.g. map, photographs, article
on “Talking Lawrence”
Elements deferred
Further potential elements but project creep resisted.
 Application of guided reading to all episodes
 Supporting original material from other parts of the
collection – e.g. letters
 Local studies content – other than dialect
 Significantly greater quantity of images
 Focused school lesson plans in collaboration with
specific school / teachers
 Audio content: reading Lawrence
Supporting future similar projects
Does it fit the digital strategy and plans?
Who’s funding? And what is funded?
Who’s managing?
Does academic partner have dedicated time?
Use proven methodologies or new developments?
Timescales suiting curators, academics and
developers?
 Complexities of IPR?
 Is it sustainable and extensible?
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Opportunities and constraints
 Tension between strategic digitisation plans
and academic project opportunities
 New models of partnership are required
 Pilot projects need to deliver generic solutions
 Curators may aim to extend the brief and
develop the resource further
 Audience focus (student/public etc.) may shift.
 If digital texts become surrogate collections,
responsibility lies with curators.
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D H Lawrence
Odour of Chyrsanthemums
at the University of Nottingham
http://odour.nottingham.ac.uk/index.asp
dorothy.johnston@nottingham.ac.uk
Manuscripts and Special Collections
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/MSS