My latest research in digital humanities. It is a proposal for a digital archive of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and it's child works. It addresses why I think some digital archives fail to really capture the fullness of the authors/works that they are supposed to represent. I also provide a hypothesis for how my proposed archive would not fail in this way. I will present it again at the Spread the WRD Conference in May, so I welcome any feedback.

1. Oz in America:
A Digital Archive
DILANE MITCHELL
FINAL PRESENTATION
ENGLISH 475: TOPICS IN LITERATURE

2. Why the Wonderful Wizard of Oz ?*
The academic answer: The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900; it was the first truly American fairy
tale. It has dozens of recreations and reincarnations (more on those later) that it has become
part of American popular culture. It is as canonical as works such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and
Leaves of Grass.
The real answer: I love Oz and didn’t mind spending several hours and days and weeks of my life
researching and reading about Oz.
*This question mark is horribly designed and I really didn’t want to use it, but by doing so I get to explain how horrible it is typographically speaking, so I left it.

3. Digital as Neutral
There is an insistence in
academic conversation of the
digital media as neutral:
nonhierarchical, unbiased,
without prejudice, and freely
accessible.
Digital tools will be the gateway
to equality for marginal voices
and accessible to everyone.

4. Digital as Neutral
In fact, the digital realm is
anything but neutral. Anything
built or displayed using
computers is forced into a
hierarchy because of
computer input languages.
Digital projects are subject to
the issues of funding and
support, which in turn, bring in
bias and prejudice. (Who is
providing funding and to
what? What work is ignored?)

5. Digital Archives
Falling “Flat”
The fantasy of neutrality
causes works to fall “flat.”
Digital archives strip the works
of all of features that make
them move their readers in
order to ensure mass appeal.
Only part of these works is
protected for future
generations.
Does authors, works, readers,
and scholars a disservice. *

6. Legibility
Each digital archive is built
different. There are
differences in quality and
structure.
The guiding elements of the
codex have been absorbed,
so we don’t notice them
anymore.
We need guiding elements
and standardization in digital
archives so that users know
how to use them and what to
expect to find within them.

7. Politically
*Works like Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and Leaves of Grass are
political in nature. Stowe and
Whitman intended for their
work to be political.
Historically and still writing and
reading were political acts
and every piece had a
political nature and motive.
It remove or ignore the
political aspects of these
works is completely against
the core of humanities
research.

8. How Oz in
America is
Different
All of the progeny of The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz make
room for lots of political
conversations.
Real conversations can take
place because Oz is a fantasy
realm.
Forums for those discussions
can be anchored in relations
to a specific progeny work.

9. Let’s Have All The Conversations