Georgetown U. Offers Gateway to Resources for Medievalists

Georgetown University unveiled a new WorldWide Web server last week that is designed to serve as a gateway to valuable resources for medievalists on the network.

Known as The Labyrinth, the project provides scholars with a menu of options from which they can choose information about everything from job opportunities to specific research interests such as Italy, the British Isles, or religious studies. Upon entering any of the categories, users can select resources of interest to them without having to know where they are stored on the vast Internet.

For example, a Dante scholar might use The Labyrinth to connect to an Italian computer to see the text of The Divine Comedy and then connect to a computer at Dartmouth College to read criticisms of that and other works. Many of the on-line resources include images that can be retrieved by users.

The project also offers a collection of pedagogical tools that professors have created for teaching medieval studies. Creators of The Labyrinth also hope to develop an “on-line university” where professors and students interested in medieval studies can meet electronically to discuss their interests.

One piece of the project that was begun nearly a year ago is “Interscripta,” a mailing list of 400 people that is devoted to topics of interest to medievalists. It is unlike most other lists on the Internet in that subscribers discuss one topic at a time for as long as six weeks.

Deborah Everhart, a visiting assistant professor of medieval studies, and Martin Irvine, an associate professor of English at Georgetown, created The Labyrinth and hope to persuade medievalists to add more resources to it. “It’s really limited only by people’s imaginations,” says Ms. Everhart.

Those who have “Mosaic” or other WorldWide Web software can connect to the following Universal Resource Locator: http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/labyrinth-home.html. Others can use the telnet function to reach guvax.georgetown.edu and should use the word “lynx” as a login.

Those who want more information about the project can send electronic mail to LABYRINTH@GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU.