Getting started

[version Bas, please compare to what is to be found in About The Project]

Using the Women Writers VRE

The Women Writers VRE is a search tool based on the so-called “faceted search”: by selecting all kinds of filters (“facets”), one can narrow down to a subset of results, corresponding to the (sub)corpus one needs to work on.

Given our research concerns, one will search for 1. (women) authors, 2. publications and 3. receptions of the publications. The important novelty is that these three faceted searches are connected to each other: if you make a selection for a group of authors on the Women Authors page, the publications you see listed on the Their Publications page correspond to works produced by the selected authors. For this selection of works, you can create the corpus of reception documents by clicking the relevant facets on the Receptions page.

Search for authors

Go to the Women Authors page. The left-hand side shows a set of facets, as well as 2 text fields (top and bottom).

If searching for one particular author whose name you know: use the first text field to search for this author by her name (note that for the moment you need to provide the full name, not just the first part). Type the name and hit enter or press the looking glass icon.

If searching for a group of authors: you use the facets corresponding to the category/ies you are working on (e.g. Dutch authors, catholic authors, etc.). For the list you obtain you can group the authors’ names: chronological order, alphabetical order by name, in order to work on them.

Clicking on a name leads you to the record page of the author; once there you can go through the whole series of records without going back to the results list (click on next or previous).

You can share this results list with colleagues, or refer to it in online publications: copy the link provided in the upper right corner.

Note: Don’t forget to click on new search if you want to start over.

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The author record page

By clicking on names in the results list you can access the individual authors’ records and see the data concerning each author.  The data are presented in six separate sections entitled respectively: Basic info (which is where you enter), Personal situation, Public Professional situation,  Publications, Receptions and Links to relevant websites.

If logged on, you can edit the data.

Clicking on the Graph button shows the author in a network graph.

Connected data sources
If a recordpage has a similar entry in a other connected database In the upper right corner an list box will appear. Select a datasource and both entries are displayed parallel.
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The network graph

This graph shows the author in a wider spectrum. It shows all related authors, publications and receptions. Authors are visualized by a pink dot; publications by a green dot. The selected person name is bold. Directions of influence exerted and received are indicated by arrows.   

Clicking on a name in the network allows to see info and a link to that record.

You can browse through the network, and click on a dot to build a new graph based on the clicked item.

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Search for publications

Continuing on your authors selection, you can find here the publications by this author/these authors. Having already selected “your” authors, you now find all their publications in the list presented.

By clicking facets you can specify the type of publications you want to work on (e.g. genre, language).

By using the Time range slider you can delimitate the period you are working on.

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The publication record page

By clicking on titles in the results list you can access the individual work record, and see the data concerning each publication. The data are presented in three sections entitled respectively: Basic info(which is where you enter), Receptions of this work and Links to relevant websites.

If logged in, you can edit the data.

Click on the Graph button to see the publication in a network graph.


Search for receptions

You can search for receptions on authors or publications. If you made a selection on the authors and/or publications page, the results you saw are based on that selection. You can share this result list to a friend or colleague by coping the link in the upper right corner.

Export to Excel
Click on download to excel to create an excel file of the search results.

Note: Don’t forget to click on new search if you want to start over.

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Enter new or edit data

Login with your Women Writers account (the password of which was sent to you last winter by Suzan).

Create a new author

To create a new author one needs to create a basic entry first. Click on New Author upper right corner. Fill in a name, a person type, a gender, a birth date and a death date. Make sure that after you have filled in a name you press the green add button. Click save. After saving this, a persistent identifier is being made. Once this is done you can edit the author by clicking on the green edit button and fill in the rest of the data.

Edit an author

Click on the green edit button on the left-hand side. The edit page is also divided into six parts.

Basic info holds the data considered as basic.

In Personal situation one can edit data (checking drop-down lists) informing about the private person of the author (i.e. Marital status, Children, Social class, Education, Religion, as well as Connections (hyperlinks leading to male as well as female persons – belonging to private life but relevant for our research).

In Public Professional situation one can edit data informing about the professionality of the author (i.e. Profession, Financial aspects, Memberships  and Collaborations (hyperlinks leading to male as well as female persons – belonging to the author’s professional life).

In Publications and Receptions one can edit Publications by this author and Receptions on this author. 

Links holds all kinds of links concerning this author (in particular also biographies).

Click save to store the changes

Create a new publication / reception

To create a new publication one needs to create a basic entry first. Click on New Publication upper right corner. Fill in a title, document type and a year. Click save. After saving this, a persistent identifier is being made. Once this is done you can edit the publication by clicking on the green edit button and fill in the rest of the data.

Edit a publication / reception

Click on the green edit button on the left-hand side. The edit page is also divided into three parts.

Basic info holds the data considered as basic (author, title, document type and a year, genres, language, reference, notes).

In Receptions you connect this publication to another publication , by giving it a reception relation.

In links you can add external links to this publication.