how to open new browser
windows yourself for making various comparisons and cross-references.
All of the features described thus far are available on both the Java and the
non-Java portions of the site (a link that toggles back and forth between the
two is available from every Work Index, Copy Index, and Object View Page).
The Java site also includes two specialized Java enhancements (or applets)
that we developed in order to
take advantage of some of the unique editorial opportunities afforded by
electronic environments.
The first Java applet is called
the ImageSizer, which consists of display area for the image
and the button console directly beneath it [show me].
The
ImageSizer's primary purpose is to allow you to calibrate your monitor (or more accurately, calibrate the
applet) so that Blake's works are displayed at their true physical size on
your screen. Clicking the Calibration button
will open a second window containing a ruler apparatus [show me]. Calibration is then accomplished by
holding an actual physical ruler up to the screen and, using the horizontal scroll bar below the onscreen rule, adjusting its calibration to fit your ruler. At
that point, once you click "Save" and reload the Object View Page in your
browser, the image's onscreen dimensions should match the dimensions recorded
at its bottom right. (Note that calibration is a useful but optional feature
of the Archive; you do not have to calibrate if you do not want to.)
The ImageSizer also allows you to manipulate the image
in other ways, most notably by using the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons to
enlarge or reduce it. For a full explanation of the ImageSizer and its features,
see our Help document.
The second Java-based feature of the Archive is called Inote. Inote is an image
annotation tool; it allows us to attach "virtual post-it notes" to selected
areas or specific details of an image. These notes contain commentary written
by the editors. (Inote is also used in conjunction with image
searches, as explained below.) You may invoke an Inote session from the Object
View page by clicking the Inote button located immediately below the ImageSizer's
button console [show me].
Inote will open a copy of the image in its own window, along with a four-part
grid overlay [show me]. Each quadrant (designated as
sectors A, B, C, and D, from top left to bottom right)
may contain multiple annotations. Annotations are accessed by clicking on a
particular detail in the image. If there is more than one annotation within
the quadrant containing the detail you will be presented with a menu of annotations
to choose from. Annotations keyed to the image in its entirety are designated as sector E. You may have any number of annotation windows open at a given
time. Inote also includes a Panner feature, which is simply a navigational aid;
it displays a thumbnail version of the full image, and you may navigate the copy
of the image in the main Inote window by way of the panner. Note that the main
Inote window also contains scrollbars. For a full explanation of Inote and its
features, see our Help document.
There are two additional features available from the Object View Page that
are worth noting. These are a copyright declaration, indicating the
owner of the copyright on the digital image (it is not always the
case that the Archive retains the copyright) as well as restrictions on its use.
The copyright declaration may be accessed by clicking on the copyright date
at the bottom left of each image [show me].
The other feature is the Image Documentation record for each image, which
consists of the bibliographical information for that specific object and textual metadata embedded in the JPEG header of the inline image.
The Image Documentation record details the creation and processing of the
electronic file constituting the image. It may be accessed by clicking the "Info"
button located on the ImageSizer's button console [show me]. Note that the Image Documentation record remains
embedded in the image even if it should become separated from the Archive itself
and may also be accessed using image viewing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Image Magick.
Thus far you've seen how to access the Archive's materials simply by
pointing and clicking--what's
commonly called browsing.
But perhaps the most powerful advantage of electronic
editions and electronic archives is their automated information retrieval
capabilities. Computers excel at sifting and sorting large quantities of
structured data, and the William Blake Archive has been
designed to take advantage of
these capabilities through its search features. Tasks that might
formerly have taken a researcher days or weeks will now require just minutes.
Searches in the William Blake Archive take one of two forms:
text searches or image searches.
The Text Search link is available from numerous points in the Archive,
including all Object View Pages, Copy Indexes, and Work Indexes. The
Text Search link is also available directly from the Search the William Blake
Archive page off our main table of contents [show
me]. The Text Search page offers you a simple dialogue box to enter the text you want
to search for, along with the parameters to define the search: All Keywords (using the boolean "And"), Any Keywords (using "Or"), the option to search for particular text As a Phrase, and even different searches within a selectable Proximity to each other [show me].
Hits are returned in the form of hierarchical lists that begin at the
main Works level [show
me]; then the Work Index [show me]; followed by the Copy Index
[show me]; and finally by a
diplomatic transcription at the Object View level [show me]. Search terms are displayed within
the transcription in red. Note that you have a menu at the bottom of the transcription page with other Text and Image Options, including links to image enlargements, editors' notes, and the Object View page. More information about text searching
is available in our Help document.
While text searching is a common option in many electronic editions,
image searches are a more innovative feature of the Archive. Our image
searching does not involve pattern recognition or computational analysis of the content
of the images but rather a search across a rich and meticulously encoded set
of XML descriptions, creating a visual concordance to Blake's work.
(Reliable pattern recognition and computer vision may be possible one day in the future, but for now just
try to get a computer to recognize the difference between a tiger and a lamb,
let alone a philosopher and a shepherd.) Like
the Text Search, the
Image Search link is available from numerous points in the Archive,
including all Object View Pages, Copy Indexes, and Work Indexes. The
Image Search link is also available directly from the Search the William Blake
Archive page off our main table of contents [show
me].
The Image Search page offers not a dialogue box but rather a set of tables
containing the keywords of the controlled vocabulary used in describing the
Archive's images [show me]. You may select multiple search terms (also known as "characteristics") just by
clicking them with your mouse; and you must also decide whether you want to
search for objects that contain any of your selected terms, or search for objects that
contain only all of your selected terms. (The latter is the default
option.) Search results are presented in the same hierarchical manner as the
results for text searches, with hits displaying first at the level of the main Works Index
[show me]; and then at the
level of the Work Index [show me]; and the level of the
Copy Index [show me].
Once an object is selected, you are shown the descriptive editorial commentary for
all illustrations on that object, together with the characteristics assigned to every component of each
illustration [show me]. The characteristics you
actually
searched for are displayed in red. Note that the same Text and Image Options available from a transcription page when searching text are available from this page of image descriptions [show me]. More information about image searching is available in our
Help document.
On the Java portion of the site, each component description also includes an Inote button.
Clicking the Inote button beneath any component description will initiate
an Inote session for that image, displaying the region of the
image containing the searched for characteristics together with the corresponding
annotation window and the navigational panner [show
me]. Note that while the image is initially displayed only with those sectors
matching your search terms, the image is present within Inote in its entirety, and you may use the panner or
Inote's scrollbars to view other portions of the image and examine additional annotations.
The combination of Inote and image searching is a key feature of the Archive. One of the first major implementations
of what is sometimes called "image-based electronic editing," this combination offers you an extremely flexible and robust apparatus for
research and study.
This Tour was intended to give you a feel for the basic design of the
Archive and some examples of various uses to which it might be put; it
does not cover all features of the Archive or fully document the operation
of those features it does cover.
But because we recognize that the Archive is a complex resource, we have gone to
great lengths to document and gloss these features elsewhere. Every
page within the Archive contains the following Help icon which will open a second
browser window displaying our Help documentation (already referenced at
several points above) entitled "How to Use the
William Blake Archive." You can try it now by clicking the Help
icon below:
The first few times you use the Archive you may wish to open the
Help document right at the start of your work session and simply
keep the window available on your desktop. Note especially the
thumbnail icons for the graphical help screens we have constructed
to explicate the basic features of the interface [show me].
Clicking on one of the white text boxes within the graphical help screen
will take you to the corresponding location in the main Help document
where additional information about the button or feature is provided.
To return to the page from which you began the Tour, simply minimize or close
this window.