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A Case for Digitizing Legacy Libraries: Stainforth's 19c Library of Women's Writing

A Case for Digitizing Legacy Libraries: Stainforth's 19c Library of Women's Writing

MLA 2016 presentation

Kirstyn Leuner

July 11, 2016
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  1. A Case for Digitizing Legacy Libraries Stainforth’s 19th-c. Collection of

    Women’s Writing Dr. Kirstyn Leuner, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dartmouth College [email protected] kirstynleuner.wordpress.com | Twitter: @KLeuner
  2. Evidence for the history of private libraries is ample and

    varied. It includes references to other writings of a period, inventories, wills, household account books, diaries, and the collectors’ personal papers. It is also available in book dealer and auction house catalogs of collections and their business archives, printed catalogs of collections, manuscript catalogs of collections, the collections themselves, provenance evidence such as bookplates, signatures, and inscriptions, marginalia, book stamps (ink or embossed), library acquisitions records and correspondence, and existing secondary sources. Until recent decades research on private libraries has been plentiful, although mainly descriptive. This large body of primary and secondary evidence now provides a solid base for analytical and interpretive research. It can be used not only to write library history, but also to assess the past roles of books, reading, and personal libraries in society. -Judith Overmier, Encyclopedia of Library History (1994), 517
  3. list generated of the most borrowed books at Manchester Academy,

    Dissenting Academies Online, http://vls.english.qmul.ac.uk/
  4. Francis Stainforth’s library of writing by women • 7394 titles*

    • published between 1546 and 1866 • 2,797 unique author names, 99% women* • male names are editors of works that contain women writers or co-authors with their wives * figures are preliminary counts; they will change slightly when we complete edits
  5. Authors w/Most Titles in Stainforth’s Library Author # of Titles

    in the Library Centlivre, Susanna 138 More, Hannah 111 Inchbald, Elizabeth 94 Rowe, Elizabeth 81 Hemans, Felicia 58 Behn, Aphra 49 Cowley, Hannah 33 Maclean, Letitia (LEL) 31 Seward, Anna 28 Wortley, Lady Emmeline Stuart 28 Alexander, Cecil Francis 27 Cavendish, Margaret 27 Plumptre, Anne 27 Sewell, Mary 27
  6. thank you Special thanks to: Debbie Hollis Cayla Eagon Susan

    Guinn-Chipman Michael Harris Chad Marks Maria Semmens Ivy Schweitzer and Stainforth editorial team alumni follow the Stainforth project at http://libpress.colorado.edu/stainforth