fren : first thoughts on Histories of Medicine site
HeleneC enquired about creating a site based on an important medieval anatomy book and its repercussions. Looked into a bit a gave her the following questions to think about and then discuss:
What do you hope to achieve with this website?
What value can you add to existing source material? How does that differ from what others have done?
Who are the intended audiences (students, researchers, practitioners), and in what domains (french, art, anatomy, history, history of medicine)?
Is the emphasis on the publication De Fabrica or on the material documenting the reception and repurcussions of that publication?
If the former, are there interesting ways of categorizing the images of other elements of the document (by technical treatment, by body part, by text feature in original annotation or subsequent commentary). Your site might be based on an online edition of De Fabrica (with annotations on the drawings and the text, search etc.)
If the latter, are there interesting ways of categorizing those "reception and repurcussion" documents (e.g. by time, by geographical location, by their relationship to to other such documents, by attributes of the author or publisher (gender, religion, academic discipline, language).
Do you have a central organizational theme? Is there a metaphor for that theme which might be useful in presenting the theme? Might there be a graphical way of representing the theme or organizing the material (e.g. timeline, map, annotated image).
Are there sites (or books) that demonstrate any of the features you'd like to include in your site?