MelissaBradshaw
commented
5 years ago @samanthalepak I think the length of the sample biography above is good. You will get better information using academic sources, rather than online encyclopedias. Our library subscribes to Oxford Bibliographies, which is an excellent resource. Here's the link to American literature; https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/browse?jumpTo=D&letter=D&module_0=obo-9780199827251&page=3&pageSize=20&sort=titlesort&type=document
You'll need to be signed in to your school account to access it. For British literature, select the pull down menu. I looked up H.D., to make sure our LUC account is still active, and the next entry was imagism, so you can probably get most of what you need from this resource. Actually, you can just enter the name of the person or movement you're looking for in the upper right hand corner search bar and you'll be taken directly to the right place.
You raise a good question about citing sources. Let's look at how other archives do this. For now, keep track of citations for each entry, and we can figure out what to do with them later.
[Pulled from DIGH 500 Sakai site] From @samanthalepak : Much of my work thus far has involved determining the kind of language and information that we should include in our glossary, specifically by looking at other archives. I've decided to go with the style of language used in the Walt Whitman Archives, as exemplified by this entry. The Whitman Archive places these at the bottom of the letter entries, formatted as follows:
Correspondent: Ellen Mary Abdy-Williams (1857–1937) was a British author and journalist, who began editing the literary periodical Time in 1885. She was married to education reformer Bernhard Whishaw (1857–1914) and published some of her work as "Mrs. Bernhard Whishaw."
The information is basic and sometimes involves a short description of the person's most notable activities, their spouse or marriage arrangements, and sometimes any children they or social connections had that might be relevant to the context of the letter or to Whitman. I can see us using this with the Aldingtons, specifying their marriage and whatnot, and also in relation to Lowell's family. Including birth and death dates is important, obviously, but I'm not sure if it's relevant to include birth place or any affiliations, such as the school of poetry or places of residence. What do we think about that?
I'm also having trouble finding reliable information for people, a source that I can consistently use for information that isn't wikipedia. Currently, I'm using Brittanica and other more reputable sources. When I write each entry, I cross-reference Brittanica, Wikipedia, and Encyclopedia.com to make sure everything is consistent, for the most part. I'm not sure if we should cite these sources.
My plan going forward is to write up the entries for the people and places that are relevant, based on what seems like it would be important to our archive, and check in regularly for edits or additions. Ultimately, I think it's a good idea to have every person and place attached to its own entry in the glossary, but for the time being it's enough of an undertaking to write the ones that are most immediately mentioned in the sample letters and in the largest quantity of letters.