15 January 2001

The editors and staff of the William Blake Archive are very pleased to announce the public release of our next generation site design, dubbed "WBA 2.0." Over a year in development, this is the first major revision of the Archive's interface since the project's debut in 1996. While all of the Archive's core features remain intact -- including the color-corrected images, high-resolution enlargements, scrupulous diplomatic transcriptions, extensive image and text search functions, and the advanced Inote and ImageSizer applets -- we have streamlined the site's organization and added major new features that we believe will significantly enhance the way the Archive is used for both scholarly research and teaching. These include:

• a Comparison feature which allows users viewing any one illuminated print to instantly compare it with other impressions in the Archive printed from the same copper plate;
• a Navigator feature which allows users to move rapidly across the Archive's collections, with a single click taking them from any work, copy, and plate, to any other work, copy, and plate;
• a Work Title search which allows users to access materials in the Archive simply by entering a title, or a known fragment of a title (e.g., "The Lamb" or "Albion"); also a search function for the extensive illustration descriptions written by the editors;
• a revised transcription layout, including: easier access to textual notes; a new line numbering system that accounts for such items as catchwords and plate numbers, in keeping with the Archive's documentary principles; and the ability to "page" through the transcriptions in sequence, thereby allowing a work to be more easily read in its entirety;
• numerous functional and cosmetic adjustments to the site design and interface, many of them in direct response to user feedback;
• updated help documentation detailing all of the above features;
• and finally, a behind-the-scenes upgrade to a faster server and a newer version of the Archive's underlying DynaWeb software.

We welcome feedback and comments on any aspect of WBA 2.0. While the Archive continues to remain available at its current address http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake/, we are also pleased to announce the registration of its domain at http://www.blakearchive.org. WBA 2.0 is accessible at either of these URLs.

As always, the William Blake Archive is a free site, imposing no access restrictions and charging no subscription fees. The site is made possible through the continuing support of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, by a major new grant from the Preservation and Access Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by the cooperation of the international array of libraries and museums that have generously given us permission to represent works from their collections in the Archive.

We would also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank those members of the Archive's staff who were instrumental in the production of WBA 2.0: Andrea Laue (Project Manager), Kirk Hastings (Lead Programmer/Analyst), David Cosca (former Lead Programmer/Analyst), and Christopher Jackson and Kari Kraus (Project Assistants).

At present the Archive contains 41 copies of 18 of Blake's 19 illuminated books (all with newly edited SGML-encoded texts and images scanned and color-corrected from first-generation 4 x 5 inch transparencies), plus a fully SGML-encoded electronic edition of David. V. Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. In the very near future we expect to release a much-anticipated electronic edition of Jerusalem, copy E; the publication of Blake's longest (and perhaps most spectacular) work will render the Archive's illuminated collection complete, with at least one copy of every work and multiple copies of most. At that point, in addition to continuing to publish additional copies of the works in illuminated printing, we will begin to incorporate Blake's accomplishments in other media (paintings, drawings, commercial and original engravings, and manuscripts). By summer we also plan to have added search functions for the Archive's general and specialized bibliographies of Blake scholarship (currently listing over 500 entries), and to publish collection handlists for each of the Archive's contributing institutions. Future supplementary materials include a biography, timeline, and in-depth study guide for teachers and students.

Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, Editors
Matthew Kirschenbaum, Technical Editor

Blake Archive Homepage