In amongst all the dross, there’s some really valuable stuff online, and even a simple search can lead to really interesting resources. Tonight I discovered the NLA Seminars Online, and for a booklover there are some real treasures.
My first discovery was Women Writing: Views and Prospects 1975-1995. I stumbled onto it with an idle Google search for the writer Elizabeth Harrower because I’d never heard of her. (Thanks, Deane!) This seminar, held 12 years ago, is a fascinating survey of the state of women’s writing, and the keynote address by Bronwyn Levy piqued my interest so much that I browsed all the other ones as well.
From there I found the Documenting a Life Seminar which was held in 1996. There are papers by Brian Kiernan, Judy Cassab, Chris Cunneen, Dennis O’Rourke and Veronica Brady, but the one I read was by one of my favourite biographers, Brenda Niall. It’s called The Trunk in the Attic: The Biographer and the Bundle of Letters where she discusses the biographer’s pursuit of her subject’s papers. She makes amusing references to the lengths some fictional biographers have gone to, including The Aspbern Papers by Henry James (which I read in Venice, where it is set!) It’s quite a long paper, but well worth reading, especially if you enjoyed her excellent biography, The Boyds. (Niall’s Life Class: The Education of a Biographer is on my TBR, and then there’s The Riddle of Father Hackett to look forward to. So many books, so little time!)
I think it’s wonderful that these resources, formerly locked away in the library stacks and probably forgotten by all but scholars, are now available for anyone who’s interested to read.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Sites like that are exceptional. I remember stumbling over ubuweb for the first time, feeling something like awe. All this? For free? So casually? And a host of Guy Maddin short films on youtube, too. Finding those was like finding money someone had dropped on the road without realising it.
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By: DKS on November 21, 2009
at 7:32 am
Ubuweb? Will you be putting the link on your blog?
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By: Lisa Hill on November 21, 2009
at 9:07 am
It’s there in the sidebar, under ‘Bookish sites.’
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By: DKS on November 21, 2009
at 9:41 am
So it is… (The first thing I had to do was change the zoom level on my browser!) I’ve subscribed to it on my Google reader, mainly so that I don’t forget about it as a resource for when I eventually get round to reading Finnegan’s Wake…
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By: Lisa Hill on November 21, 2009
at 10:13 am
I thought it was easier than Ulysses, if that helps. Not easier to understand (it isn’t) but easier to read, because so much of it sings. It seemed — I can’t think of a better word than this off the top of my head — bubblier, in the way that a set of rapids is bubbly.
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By: DKS on November 21, 2009
at 8:04 pm
Well, that’s encouraging. I haven’t even got a copy of it yet ; I never seem to see it in bookshops.
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By: Lisa Hill on November 21, 2009
at 10:36 pm