BYU professor leads the

way in digitizing
Victorian era literature
More than 100 students, in a 10-year
span, help create the Viki Wiki
In 2004, BYU English professor Leslee Thorne-Murphy
spearheaded the Victorian Short Fiction Project, a
research venture to get her British literature undergrads
more involved in exploring the Victorian literary
goldmine stored deep in BYU's special collections library.
Now, 10 years later, the project affectionately known as
the Viki Wiki has nearly 200 transcribed stories in an
online repository, viewed more than 150,000 times.
A wiki is a website that allows collaborative contributions
of content from many users. And thanks to the webdesign expertise of Michael Johnson and the BYU Center
for Teaching and Learning, its been the perfect platform
for Thorne-Murphys students to make real scholarly
contributions to the study of Victorian literature.
I wanted them to experience the sense of discovery that
comes from archival research and to sample literature
beyond their anthology, Thorne-Murphy said.
Above all, she wanted to release her students from the
traditional classroom.
Tucked away in the temperature-controlled vaults of
BYUs L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library sits a vast
collection of original Victorian-era periodicals, filled with
understudied short fiction by the likes of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charlotte
Bront and their peers. The periodicals have been
indexed and secured thanks to the tireless efforts on
special collections curator Maggie Kopp. Thorne-Murphy
and her students are driven to get these stories into
more hands, but know that passing around 19th century
journals wont do the trick.
As part of Thorne-Murphys English 375 class (British
Literature from 1832-1900: The Victorian period),
students peruse thousands of possible short stories from
the periodicals, ultimately choosing whichever one they
feel deserves less dust and more attention, ever after
affectionately referring to their chosen narrative as my
story.
With the original story in hand, students pour over the
piece, soaking in each detail. The facsimiles are digitized,
the text is transcribed, the passages are carefully
annotated and the story is given an original introduction.
All of it is then uploaded to the wiki where anyone in the
world can enjoy both the story and the students original
research.

I've always loved Victorian literature and the time

period, said Kaley Clarke, one of the English students
working on the project this semester. The most
rewarding part of this project has been the opportunity,
and excuse, to spend hours scouring old books and
journals and learning more about the literature of the
period. It's introduced me to a new way to work with
literature.
As the project has matured, Thorne-Murphy has
observed the extent to which her students invest
themselves in it.
I saw how much ownership they took of their projects,
and how eager they were to share what they were
learning with others, she said. I also realized that my
students were unearthing texts that I wanted to read,
share with other scholars and assign in the future.
With the number of volumes housed on campus, there is
certainly enough material to carry on the project for a
very long time.
I dont see this project ever finishing, Thorne-Murphy
said.
The Viki Wiki is unique because its really the only digital
archive of Victorian short fiction in sight. But professor
Thorne-Murphy is clear about the projects real aim.
The purpose of the project is the students, she said.
We are training the next generation of digital humanists
people who are trained in the humanities but see the
potential of digital technology. The students electronic
texts reach far beyond the classroom and will reside in a
public space after the semester ends. One of the most
important legacies we can pass on to our students is an
understanding and appreciation of the strengths of both
material and electronic texts. They will need to be
stewards of both.
Students complete the class equipped with an arsenal of
technological, scholarly skills and an original academic
publication on their resumes often rare for the
undergraduate. Thorne-Murphy has had former students
gleefully walk back into her office and exclaim about a
recent job interview, thrilled that the interviewer took
such interest in the Viki Wiki contribution. As one former
student put it, It made me feel like a legitimate
scholar.
The Viki Wiki is a prime example of what's been a focus
for BYU's College of Humanities to translate humanities
training into professional qualifications. With the support
of the Office of Digital Humanities, the project will
continue to bring literary gems to light as it nurtures
students in bridging the worlds of traditional scholarship
and technical innovation.
"Over the last few years digital humanists have begun to
worry about how to raise up the next generation of
digitally-literate literary researchers," said BYU digital
humanities professor Jeremy Browne. "We know that
future scholars won't have a problem with the

technology, but will they know how to properly integrate

the technology with traditional methods of humanities
scholarship? Dr. Thorne-Murphy has been working to
solve that problem for a decade. The Viki Wiki gives

students experience across the whole process from

locating and selecting original artifacts, through the
digitization process, and into the interpretive activity of
criticism."

BYU English professor Leslee Thorne-Murphy (middle)

addresses her students in the Harold B. Lee Library Special
Collections. (BYU Photo)

Kaley Clarke looks through a Victorian-era periodical.

(BYU Photo)
An image within one of the periodicals. (BYU Photo)

Rachel Gessel examines a map within a Victorian-era

periodical. (BYU Photo)

Joshua Guerrero and Chelsea Holdaway discuss findings

within a Victorian-era periodical. (BYU Photo)