Print Sources (E.G. Biographies) Are Linked to Call Numbers in Utcat

Arden Hegele 9 June, 2008 Project Report: 5 May to 6 June

1. Assembled a public RefWorks list of (~420) secondary sources about the plays and playwrights, and created links to these sources.  Print sources (e.g. biographies) are linked to call numbers in UTCat.  Online sources (e.g. journal articles, online books) have direct links.  Some sources do not have links: this usually occurred when an article appeared as a citation on Google Books, but could not be accessed in full online or in UTCat.  Some plays listed: these have secondary introductions or annotations.

2. Assembled a list of select secondary biographical works for each playwright from the RefWorks list.

3. Compiled a list of plays for each playwright (from Literature Resource Center, when available).

4. Created a spreadsheet (“Productions-performance date & linguistic utility”) of 338 plays from the aforementioned lists of plays using Professor Percy’s template.  AUTHOR-Title  First performance (sometimes incomplete)  First published version (subject to change)  C18th availability in UTCat (Electronic, Print, Microfilm, x (Not available))  Modern availability in UTCat (Electronic, Print, x (Not available))  Utility (High, Medium, Low)  Year of first performance (1740 to 1800 listed)

5. Created a Word document for each play: C18th and Modern availability in UTCat. Many C18th versions available from ECCO and modern versions from LION (1990s).

6. Assembled biographical information for each playwright in Word documents.  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  Literature Resource Center

7. Assembled list of plays by each playwright with secondary information from the LRC and ODNB biographies; highlighted information that could be relevant by looking for the following trends:  Irish/French/colonial people  References to peculiar dialects (sailors, attempts at 'class-crossing')  Satire of British theatre  General popularity/importance (number of performances and recurrence in modern scholarship) This information was used to determine the Utility rating for the spreadsheet (#4).

8. Assembled playwrights’ education information in Word documents.  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  Literature Resource Center  Print sources in Robarts

Other activities (mostly for my own understanding):

1. Spreadsheet of interactions between playwrights mentioned in ODNB and LRC biographies.

2. Word document on the background of theatre in London from Wood, E.R. Plays by David Garrick and George Colman the Elder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

3. Spreadsheet of playwrights’ levels of education.

4. Information on other members of the Sheridan family:  Availability of Thomas and Betsy Sheridan’s works in UTCat  Biographies of the Rev. Thomas Sheridan and Thomas Sheridan (ODNB, LRC, portions of print sources in Robarts)  List of secondary sources on Thomas Sheridan