Doris Lessing's GOLDEN NOTEBOOK

New technologies promise to support collaborative research and other interpretive activities, and so it's really good when you see a well-structured example appear on the internet.

In an 'experiment in close-reading', seven critics, scholars and creative writers were invited to participate in an online discussion of Doris Lessing's novel The Golden Notebook. With the approval of the author and publisher Harper Collins, the full-text of the novel is provided so that those outside of the chosen group can consider the 'readings' provided by each contributor with easy reference to the page or pages under discussion. The concentration of discussion on particular pages can also be examined in a section that arranges comments per page in descending order.

The 'reading' of the novel began on 8 November 2008 and continued for approximately six weeks. Observers have been invited to comment in a Forum and the chosen readers reflected on their experience in a blog. This is all arranged in a very simple interface that enables visitors to concentrate on the text of the novel and the attached comments.

Comments in the Forum show a mixed reaction to the experiment, some questioning the veracity of the 'reading' being done online and others suggesting the need for readers outside of the English-speaking world. But, despite this criticism, most people who have added their voice to the discussion have been positive. For an online experiment, the small numbers who have posted comments might be disappointing to the organisers, but one might wonder how this could develop as more people become aware of the site's existence.

This experiment in close reading provides a very good model for similar initiatives using full-text through the AustLit portal. Agreements with authors and publishers will have to be made for contemporary works, but those works out of copyright provide the possibility for trial and experimentation.

The Aus-e-Lit Project will develop new annotation tools to support experiments like The Golden Notebook and will soon invite contributors to participate in an annotation event that centres on The Bulletin Story Book which contains a number of well-known Australian short stories, including Henry Lawson's 'The Drover's Wife', Barbara Baynton's 'The Tramp' (a version of 'The Chosen Vessel') and Arthur Hoey Davis' 'On Our Selection' among many other well-known and long-forgotten stories.

This event will inform the development of collaborative annotation tools by inviting wide participation and feedback on the technical and conceptual delivery of such a service to researchers in the field of Australian literature. The release of this development model will be announced here and through other AustLit networks in the near future. The prototype will be discussed in a special session at ASAL 2009.