Using the DDNP

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General Overview

The DDNP invites users into the dynamics of Dickens’s compositional process and facilitates new modes of accessing the temporalities of Victorian serial form. However, there is no single way to use the DDNP. In the same way that Dickens’s use of the Working Notes was indexical and non-linear, our presentation of transcriptions of the Notes in this digital environment enables users to explore their significance in many different ways. Users can:

• examine a complete set of transcribed Notes as a record of a novel’s unfolding architecture during its serial composition;

• trace threads of plot development or character combination across and through a set of Notes;

• analyze the transcription of a single Working Note in relation to its published installment;

• or compare Dickens’s use of the Notes across novels to find patterns or developments in his navigation of serial form.

You can access the transcriptions and annotations of the Working Notes for each novel included in the project through the novel’s landing page, which includes a critical introduction to the novel and its Working Notes. The General Introduction provides an overview of Dickens’s career, the Working Notes, and Victorian seriality. Our Scholarly Introduction explains how the DDNP intervenes in scholarship on Dickens’s compositional practice and serial form.

Educators can visit the Teaching with the DDNP section to explore how to incorporate the Working Notes and the DDNP into the classroom. The “About the Project” menu contains links to information about our Project team, our editorial and transcription methodology, the technical specifications of our website, and a bibliography of scholarly resources on Dickens and Victorian serial form.

Viewing Transcriptions and Annotations in Mirador

The DDNP’s transcriptions and annotations of the Working Notes are displayed using Mirador, an open-source image viewing platform. Transcriptions of each Working Note in Mirador are labeled by novel abbreviation__WN__installment number (for example, the Working Note for Little Dorrit No. III is labeled LD_WN_03); annotations are labelled by novel abbreviation.installment number.annotation number (for example, the label BH.XI.R2 indicates the second annotation on the right-hand side of the Working Note for Bleak House No. XI). We present our transcriptions of each Working Note as an image that users can read and interact with in this platform. Users can move the image within the viewing window using their cursor, and zoom in or out by scrolling with their mouse or touchpad. For users on mobile devices, these functions can be performed using the touch screen.

The View menu allows users to access thumbnails of all the Working Notes for a novel or to display a single transcribed page of the Notes. Thumbnails are displayed on the right of the viewing window by default to allow users easy access to all pages of a novel’s Working Notes; users can use the View menu to turn thumbnails off to maximize viewing space, or to display them at the bottom of the Mirador viewer.

To navigate to the next page of a novel’s Working Notes, users can click on the Change Image arrows at the bottom of the page or use the Index in the sidebar to select an installment number.

Annotations are indicated by a box around an item on the Working Note, although users can also explore the contents of a Working Note without annotation boxes by clicking the “Highlight all / none” icon. If “Highlight none” is chosen, the annotation box will still appear if your cursor moves over an annotated item. In either view, clicking on an annotation box will bring up the accompanying commentary in the annotation pane.

The annotation pane can be resized for ease of reading by dragging the division between the annotation pane and the viewing window with a cursor or, on a mobile device, a finger.

All annotations are labeled using the following system for the purposes of citation and reference:

[novel abbreviation].[Working Note number].[annotation number]

For example, the label DC.VII.R2 would indicate: David Copperfield, Working Note VII, and the second annotation on the right-hand side of the Note (moving top to bottom). Annotations also repeat the text (or content) on the Note being annotated in bold for clarity.

Mirador provides users with several options for customizing their user experience and accessing different elements of the displayed images.

• Toggle Sidebar — collapses or expands the sidebar and annotation pane

• Information — provides further information about the image displayed, including citation information and a link to the manifest

• Highlight All / None — the small eyeball icon allows users to display or hide annotation boxes on the image

• Annotation / Index View — the index view brings up a list of items (i.e., a list of the transcribed Working Note images) in the sidebar; the annotation view displays the annotations pane for a given image

• Annotation Label — all annotations have a label for reference and citation purposes; the label provides a unique identifier for each annotation on the site (here: BH.V.L1), while the text in bold (here: Richard. No.) identifies the content of the Note being annotated

Searching the DDNP

Users can search the DDNP from the search menu under “Using the DDNP.” Upon searching a keyword, users can subsequently filter results by content type, including site content (introductions and website content), Working Notes by novel, and annotations for each novel. At this time (V1 release), the keyword search is unable to recognize special characters (e.g. excluding a term, quotations for phrase searching).

Search results can be sorted by relevance or title name (ascending and descending). Search results include short content excerpts with the keyword highlighted. Clicking on the result hyperlink to a Working Note will take the user to the relevant page in Mirador. Clicking on the result hyperlink to an Annotation will also pull up Mirador and will also locate and highlight the relevant annotation in the annotation pane.

To learn more about the technical specifications and design of the DDNP website, visit the Colophon.