Installation of Sybils! proved to be a problem that never went away, and since there is no documentation included in the package, several problems of installation were never solved in the time allowed for the review. What appeared to be a simple installation process got very bogged down at the point where the QuickTime installation was befuddled by the existence of a current version of that software.
The lack of information regarding technical support was one of many symptoms that this product was not quite ready for the marketplace. I found a string of evidence that the product may better have been released later, with more details neatly finished.
One of the first things apparent about the opening screen of Sybils! is that it is small. The second thing is that it is impossible for users to control the screen size or placement, so it stays small, and in the middle of users’ monitor screens. After an initial trip through introductory screens that offer instructions on use, the next thing to notice is that the rather intense brown/orange background pattern, chosen to represent vellum or parchment, makes it very difficult to read the smaller and the red typefaces, which are used consistently throughout the entire program. The designers would have done well to “wash out” the background in favor of readability, and set the screen size to fill the screen completely.
The overall design seems to be reaching for a feeling of ancient manuscripts, and while that is understandable, the fact is that the medium being used is completely modern, so various pop‐up windows leave behind the ancient look and are merely difficult to read because of window and type size. The jarring effects of the modern window design in the ancient look are further emphasized by the highly uneven content within the pop‐ups. The overall feeling that the CD content was provided by a group that did not take time to bring it all together into one program became more and more intense as I explored the program content, menu by menu.
The top menu items include: Introduction, Timeline, Scriptorium, Further Pathways, Queens and Courtiers, Women and Spirituality, and Women and the Law. Background music for menus is interrupted when users click to leave a menu screen, and it begins again at the beginning upon returning to see the next menu item. It becomes rather tedious to hear the repeats and interrupted phrases. Fortunately, the music can be silenced with a switch on the main menu.
Owing to the lack of introductory and supplemental materials, it is anyone’s guess as to what the program will contain. The brief introduction mentions only a few aspects of the program, and the menus are the only clues to the eclectic collection of content.
One instance of puzzlement regarding the content is the Timeline, which consists of a control bar with a series of incomprehensible characters above it, such as +( “2” in a rather large type face. Underneath such incomprehensible characters are miniscule captions, some of which are hypertext links that retrieve pop‐up windows containing information relating to the captions. A guess is that the incomprehensible characters were supposed to be illustrations, and the captions support this guess. A brief question regarding the incomprehensible characters in the Timeline via e‐mail to the “contact us” address on the www.films.com Web page yielded an unhelpful response from a sales representative.
Most of the text is also presented in files that are readable by Web browsers. This text is almost without formatting, although much more readable than the obscured text of the program’s pages which contain the background. The hypertext links are lacking in the browsable pages, and odd punctuation that may be left over from other formats is confusing at first, until users discover that it denotes text that is a hypertext link in the regular program. (Although why it is necessary to know where the non‐working hypertext links are remains quite a mystery.)
The impressive array of materials, which includes video clips, sound files and still images, warrants much better design for comfortable use and intellectual access.
The group that compiled the CD describe its contents in this way: “We have completed Sybils!, a CD‐ROM which focuses on three main areas: Queens and Courtiers, Women and Spirituality and Women and the Law. As well as music, scholarly essays and medieval texts in translation, it includes an entire unpublished manuscript (the Regola delle sore di Santa Chiara) with images of the original text, an English translation and commentary, images from two important McMaster manuscripts: a fourteenth century Middle Dutch Legendary and a fifteenth century Book of Hours, and many images from McMaster’s fine 1493 edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle. There is also an interactive Timeline, and each section includes many detailed bibliographies.”
They also describe it as “the second version of a work in progress” which at least explains the sense that there is much more to be done. As it is, the work appears to be a selected group of audiovisual materials and texts which is gradually coming together as a collection with a coherent theme. The bibliographies in the various sections testify to the sources used in research and documentation of the original essays. The texts that are reproduced help give the content authenticity and provide historical context for the original essays.
The music section within the Scriptorium stands by itself with no indication about why the pieces were selected. The most mysterious selections are Hungarian folk tunes collected by Bela Bartok. It is possible that context for each musical selection is provided in the other sections of the CD; however, after checking throughout each section, I did not come upon such explanations or context. The accompanying descriptions for on Hungarian folk tune attribute State University of New York Press as the publisher in 1981 as well as David Walker as the performer, yet provides no sense of how the piece may relate to a person or community within the collection comprising the CD.
The authors and producers of the CD, the McMaster (University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) Working Group on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is an interdisciplinary group of scholars interested in examining women’s issues. Members of the group are: Susan Fast ‐ School of Art, Drama and Music, Kathleen Garay ‐ Archives, History, Women’s Studies, Madeleine Jeay ‐ French, Bernice Kaczynski ‐ History, Laurel Means ‐ English (now retired), Helen Ostovich ‐ English, Anne Savage ‐ English , Mary Silcox ‐ English. The CD provides a link to the Working Group’s Web site so that future plans for the materials can be discovered if users wish to follow the progress of the group research projects. This group of scholars provide both fascinating original materials and primary sources for the study of those periods. For those who are willing to wade into the CD, there is a wealth of authoritative information. The weaknesses of the collection reside in their organization and publication design.
Each time the program is opened after the first time, users must go through three unnecessary screens to get to the main menu. Even during the time it took to write a review, the opening screens became rather tedious. Navigation through the texts, audiovisual files, and timeline was very straightforward, with easy to understand directions for getting through menus and from one item to another in the collection of materials. Yet another instance of design problems, though, includes sequences of screens which required users to get to the end before being able to get “out” of the sequence and to a previous screen or menu.
Sybils! has no search engine, only menus. Neither a table of contents nor an index is included. Users must rely on the layers of menus within each section to slowly determine the content of the CD. Although navigation from menu to menu is relatively simple, the lack of such basic tools for getting intellectual access to the content of the CD is one of its most apparent design shortcomings. The persistent will find a good, if rather uneven collection of content, created by a dedicated and authoritative group of scholars. Others will most likely browse for a while and look elsewhere for more accessible versions of the material or scholarship concerning women from the time periods covered.
The version of Sybils! reviewed had no documentation. A simple leaflet with system requirements and the name of the setup files comes in the jewel case. The contact staff at the Web site of www.films.com is the sales staff, not a technical staff.
The CD is meant to be a standalone product, so purchase is a rather simple affair. Any requests for more complicated access should be directed to www.films.com.
It is easy to have very mixed feelings about the collection of materials brought together on the Sybils! CD. It is not possible for a print source to replicate the audiovisual elements found in the collection. The reproductions of the manuscripts included provide access to information that will probably never travel from McMaster University in any other form. The restrictions imposed on intellectual access as the result of the design process makes me wish that the content could be compiled from start to finish with more user input and testing. Reproducing it as a Web page may hamper the delivery of the audiovisual material, but it may also solve other design problems in the current version.
In summary, The McMaster Working Group on the Middle Ages and Renaissance have compiled very worthwhile materials in a problematic way. Historians and scholars of women’s studies and social studies could find a good deal of rewarding material here. However, it is difficult to recommend a source that presents such difficulties of access, even at a rather inexpensive price of $149. With an overhaul of the design to include adequate display of the contents as well as indexes and other tools for searching, the value would be much greater. I would not recommend it for library purchase unless it has been specifically requested by a faculty member who is aware of the contents and intends to use that specific collection of items or portions of it.
