The RWO online collection

The Renaissance Women Online collection has already been recognized within the community of scholars and teachers as a premiere resource for the study of early women's writing. In a recent session entitled "Old Texts, New Strategies: Researching and Teaching Early Women Writers Online" at the Modern Language Association convention in Chicago (December, 1999), three speakers described research and teaching projects which they had undertaken using RWO, and the audience was full of scholars who had also worked with RWO or contributed to its development. Thanks to the Mellon Foundation, and to the efforts of those who have participated in the RWO initiative, this resource is now well-known and increasingly widely used, and is making possible a dramatic reshaping of the early modern curriculum. The discussion which follows will describe the general design of the RWO resource, the criteria by which texts were chosen for inclusion, the method of publication and how it was conceptualized, and the encoding methods and delivery system used.

General design

The Renaissance Women Online collection was conceptualized as serving a variety of purposes, all of which contributed to the development of the collection. Above all, since it was intended to offer a comparison with print editions, it had to match the scholarly integrity, credibility, and general usefulness of such materials in order for the comparison to be meaningful. In addition, it was intended to support both teaching and research, and thus we had to consider a broad range of users and levels of expertise in designing the interface and pitching the contextual materials. Finally, in keeping with the broadly interdisciplinary scope of the Women Writers Project's existing collection, we wanted to include a wide range of texts not limited to the traditional belles lettres bias of the male canon, but rather representing the literate culture of the period as comprehensively as possible.

To ensure that the collection would meet the highest standards of textual integrity and reflect current scholarly and pedagogical needs, we appointed a selection committee chaired by Professor Elizabeth H. Hageman of the University of New Hampshire, who has served on the Executive Committee of the Women Writers Project as its Renaissance specialist since its inception. The committee's other members are Professor Boyd M. Berry, Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, Georgianna Ziegler of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and Dr. John Lavagnino of King's College, London. They compiled a list of 55 texts to be transcribed, which together with 45 more from the WWP's existing collection would constitute the Renaissance Women Online collection of 100 texts.

In addition to these primary texts, RWO was designed to include a brief introductory essay for each text, describing its production and cultural context, and a set of topic essays discussing broad themes which are of importance for the entire collection. Aimed at readers unfamiliar with Renaissance women's writing--whether students first encountering the period, or faculty from other areas--these essays resist offering overly evaluative or interpretive readings, but provide essential background which for many of these rare authors is difficult to uncover. They also suggest links with other texts and authors, thus providing strands of continuity which serve to bind the collection together conceptually. Paul Caton, the WWP's Electronic Publications Editor, worked with Professor Hageman to identify and contact scholars with expertise on particular authors, and to ask them to contribute to this collection of essays. All of the essays were written on a volunteer basis.

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