19th Century Children’s Literature
University of Washington’s iSchool supports and hosts a capstone project for their student. Capstone projects are the culmination of students' learning experience at the iSchool. They distill the knowledge and skills acquired in academic courses and apply them to a real-world project.
Along with Teresa Ball, Rose Frazier, and Mike Hajostek, Nicole digitized, researched, and built out a digital collection of 19th century Children’s Literature to bring awareness to the Special Collections Historic Children’s Literature Collection.
Within the Digital Collection, the team members focused on individual themes. Nicole chose to digize and research Fairy Tales with a concentration in Cinderella stories.
Children Will Listen: The Value of Children's Literature
The purpose of this project is to bring to light how much can be gleaned from studying children’s literature of the past. While there is great inherent historical value to the contents of the Historical Children’s Literature Collection, there is also a depth of sociological analysis, existential questions, and literary value that can be drawn out from the further study of these items. Children’s literature “reflects the historical, educational, cultural, social, and literary trends of the succeeding periods” (Steinfirst, 1976). Put differently, changing cultural attitudes influences the development of children’s literature (Hunt, 1995). We aim to provide access to these items to inspire studies, to share with others, and maybe even to encourage a visit Special Collections at the University of Washington.
Over the course of a year, this project entailed:
Digitization of 19th Century Literature
Cataloged digital media and integrated with UW Libraries systems
Build out Omeka site to host digital collection
Research for contextualization and best practices for use in classrooms
50 minute presentation to stakeholders, instructors, and library professionals
