Aries Chen on Building a Digital Exhibition of Citation in Early Modern French Texts
During this past academic year, UW Textual Studies alum and current iSchool MLIS student, Aries Chen, completed a Capstone project that explored citation methods in French texts of the early modern period. Researching rare artifacts in UW Special Collections, Aries scanned, digitized, and compiled an exhibition tracking citation from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Read on to find out more about this exciting project, hear about Aries work with rare materials, and how this project brought together the skills of the TXTDS minor with Aries’ major area of study in the French language.
Researching Early Modern Works in UW Special Collections
To research for the project, Aries went to UW Special Collections, and worked with a number of artifacts, including historical works of botany, Les Essais by Michel de Montaigne, Les Provinciales by Blaise Pascale, and other selections spanning the histories of science and medicine, specimens from the libraries’ rare book holdings, and a few titles from its book arts collection.
“This project traces the reuse of pieces of information, examining how cited material is treated and how references to cited works are constructed. The majority of the research was conducted by looking at a source, finding a citation, and following that citation to the source.”
– Aries Chen
To record this trail of citation use, Aries utilized a KIC Click Mini overhead scanner in the UW Special Collections reading room, taking images of the works and processing them for display on the project website where the trail of cited material could be visualized.
Building a Digital Exhibition of Citation Practices
To explore these historical citation practices, Aries completed a digital exhibition. This combines an overview of early modern citation with an information timeline that allows visitors to the site to track the appearance of cited texts and concepts across the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
“My capstone looked at citation in printed texts, mostly from early modern France, to describe citation forms, the information that citation contains, and how citation evolved. The work I did for my capstone tied together concepts from courses I’d taken across Textual Studies, from website-building skills to utilizing the resources in Special Collections, and even beyond that to work I’d done for my major in French.”
– Aries Chen
Aries Chen Pursues MLIS at UW iSchool
Building upon this project utilizing library resources and developing digital tools to showcase materials in library collections, Aries has continued on to the UW iSchool to complete a Master’s of Library and Information Science.
“My work in the Textual Studies minor is what got me interested in library and information sciences in the first place. Every course I took in the minor encouraged students to engage in library resources, and my interest in libraries developed while making use of those resources. Also, the knowledge I picked up from coursework and research helped me show in my application that I was serious about wanting to study library sciences and that I had an idea of what I wanted out of an MLIS. I hope to work in instruction or academic librarianship, and I look forward to learning more about libraries in my program!”
– Aries Chen
Minor in Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Capstone
Like Aries’ work bringing the interests of the French major and the skills of the Textual Studies minor together, the Capstone project is designed to combine the scholarly interests of students in the program over a quarter-long independent research project under the advisement of a faculty member.
These projects can take many forms and there are even possibilities for internships with local professional organizations, as well as opportunities to work on faculty-led research, or to participate in summer programs, like the Humanities Data Science Summer Institute.
You can read more about the Capstone requirement and see some examples of prior student projects here.
Many congratulations to Aries on completing this fascinating Capstone project and, with it, the Minor in Textual Studies and the Digital Humanities. And, an additional congratulations to Aries for being accepted to the Masters in Library and Information Science program at the UW iSchool!
You can explore Aries project here. And you can check out our website or email text@uw.edu to find out more about the Minor in Textual Study and Digital Humanities, Capstone requirements, and upcoming TXTDS courses.
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