Making "Digital Cruikshank": A Special Collections Collaboration

Abstract

In Fall 2022, students in Lindsay DiCuirci's combined undergraduate and graduate English seminar participated in a semester-long collaboration with UMBC Special Collections. This course was supported by a Hrabowski Innovation Grant which allowed Susan Graham and her team to digitize a collection of donated materials related to George Cruikshank. Cruikshank was nineteenth-century England’s most prolific caricaturist and illustrator; the Merkle family's donation included unbound manuscript materials and over 120 printed works. Working in teams to build a digital resource based on these materials, students produced "Digital Cruikshank: Etching & Sketching in Nineteenth-Century England" (https://library-dev.umbc.edu/wp/specialcollections/cruikshank/) The resource features over 130 sketches gathered into collections with accompanying explanatory content. This presentation will share elements of the project management workflow and student-created guides and templates. We will also highlight the interdisciplinary affordances of collaborative, archival work as well as the significant pedagogical benefits of a project-based class in the Humanities.