The WPI Dickens Portal is making its global debut at the Dickens Symposium at the University of Birmingham, England, July 15-18, 2024.
Arthur Carlson, University Archivist and Assistant Director of Gordon Library, will showcase the portal during a formal presentation at the Symposium as well as a live demonstration during a collaborative “Digital Dickens” workshop.
The WPI Dickens Portal enables world-wide access to WPI’s growing collection of materials related to the life, world, and works of Charles Dickens. The Portal provides access to three integrated digital services:
- Project Boz: A globally unique service that allows readers to experience Dickens’s novels in their original serial format, including every page of text, illustration, and advertisement. A Tale of Two Cities and Nicholas Nickleby serve as source material for the Oxford University editions edited by WPI Professor Joel J. Brattin. All first edition titles will be uploaded Summer 2024.
- ArchivesSpace Integrated Collection Guides: these guides display the full holdings of WPI’s special Dickens collections, featuring The Daniel and Alice Ryan Collection; The Robert D. Fellman Collection; and the Fred Guida Audio/Visual Collection of Charles Dickens, along with items WPI has independently acquired from other donors or purchases. These collection guides are the primary discovery element for our most unique items.
- Illustrating Dickens’s World - Spotlight Digital Exhibition: Illustrating Dickens’s World highlights the many artistic partners who brought Dickens’s characters to life through their illustrations in his first edition novels. This digital exhibit is one of many new digital exhibitions on WPI’s Spotlight platform.
The launch of the Dickens Portal realizes a shared vision of WPI as a world-class destination for research on Dickens - one committed to removing barriers for access by all, and to actively engaging scholars at every level in dynamic and ongoing ways.
Dickens’s literary legacy echoes WPI’s mission of innovation with purpose, introducing innovative forms of writing and publishing, and dramatically reflecting the human consequences of major technological revolutions.
- For more information about the Dickens Portal or WPI’s Dickens collections, please contact the WPI Archives: archives@wpi.edu
- To learn about WPI’s Archives and Special Collections, please visit: https://www.wpi.edu/library/archives-special-collections