Web gems

Rescuing a literary pioneer and showcasing McGill's collections

BY MARK SHAINBLUM | Join us as we unearth the hidden gems and secret places on the websites of McGill University and its affiliated institutions.

The Burney Centre at McGill University

http://burneycentre.mcgill.ca

Frances Burney d'Arblay (1752-1840) was a prolific English diarist, novelist and playwright whose work directly influenced her more famous successors such as Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray. Her first novel, Evelina, published in 1778, arguably created a whole new school of fiction, one in which women in society "were portrayed in realistic, contemporary circumstances." McGill's Burney Centre (originally the Burney Papers Project) was created in 1960 to rescue this unjustly forgotten literary pioneer from obscurity, the kind of task the web was made for. The centre's attractive and well-designed website provides a treasure trove of information and content, including biographies of the author and her contemporaries, links to free online editions of virtually all of Burney's writings, an overview of McGill's rare Burney holdings and more.

Fontanus: From the Collections of McGill University

http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/fontanus

Fontanus is a beautifully illustrated and rigorously researched annual scholarly journal published by the library's Rare Books and Special Collections Division. It is designed to showcase McGill's extensive collections through in-depth scholarly articles on science, medicine, law, humanities and the social sciences that relate to a specific collection.Fontanus was founded in 1988 and has been online since 2005. All 11 volumes are available through an attractive web interface that preserves the look and feel of the print edition.

Have a favourite McGill web gem we haven't covered yet? Tell us about it. Email mark.shainblum@mcgill.ca.