The project begins – first engagement event – so much reading

Nov. 8, 2017 | james

Hello world. (apologies… I have always wanted to start off a research blog with that iconic phrase)

A month in, and work is progressing well. We have already demonstrated the first of the Litcraft resource designs at the International Games Week event held at the British Library on November 4th.

Sally and James attended with the Treasure Island Minecraft and card game designs and Swallows & Amazons Minecraft task; with a great location on the first floor mezzanine, and beautiful posters acquired just in time, the project saw a lot of interest from visitors. It was an ideally-sized event to trial our project iPads and unveil the research goals to members of the public – several of whom worked with libraries across the country – we hope to remain in contact throughout the course of our work with everyone who we met on the day!

Sally instructing Litcraft – in French, no less!

The children really took to the Minecraft – especially Sally’s treasure-hunting and in-game map-reading  tasks. We were delighted by how many people fondly remembered Ransome’s work (again, they very much enjoyed building Wildcat Island – with some very creative interpretations of the map), and were encouraged when several parents said they were going to try and find a copy to read to the children at night. That is exactly what we were hoping for.

Not so subtle a nook (not pictured, the coffee shop round the corner!)

It was a long day, but extremely productive. Our thanks again to Stella Wisdom for inviting us to attend – we very much hope to return next year, with a whole array of Litcraft resources.

Obligatory event selfie

Work continues on determining the final few texts that would complete the corpus, and make it as representative as possible – no easy task when we haven’t set ourselves any era- or genre-based boundaries, and indeed need to demonstrate the coding is so versatile in can apply to all manner of texts. There’s worse ways to spend time than browsing bookstores, both virtually and in person, making copious excited notes, and discovering some unconsidered gems. If only we had funding for five years so as to have enough time to work on triple the amount of texts. But one step at a time…

(anyone reading this – if you have a suggestion you strongly believe would be an ideal fit the the chronotopes discussed under the Corpus page, please get in touch – we always enjoy considering new material)