Originating in 1995‐96, the Romantic Chronology (http://english.ucsb.edu:591/ rchrono/) is a collaborative effort by faculty and students at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The site’s editors are Laura Mandell, Department of English at Miami University, Ohio, and Alan Liu, Department of English at UC, Santa Barbara. Liu is also the creator of the Voice of the Shuttle Web Page for Humanities Research at http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/english.html The Romantic Chronology is an excellent example of how to use the interactivity of the Web to create a valuable resource for teachers and students. Its extensive use of hypertext brings the user to resources both within the site and outside.
The Romantic Chronology is divided into two main areas: the Chronology and the Link Archive. The Chronology allows users to generate chronologies by date, search by topic, or search for specific entries. By selecting a time period from the large table on its home page, users generate a chronological list of events. Chronologies are available from 1642 to 1851 and include historical, political, literary, and cultural events of the Romantic period. Once a date list of events is displayed, users can choose to sort the list by a specific topic area or ask for details about a particular event. The details for each record include the date of the event, the description of the event, links to Web pages about the topic, the record creator, and the date the record was last modified. Records containing links to Web sites are especially useful for pursuing additional information and scholarly resources located on the Web.
The Chronology is also arranged into broad topic areas. By clicking on Topics Catalogue, in the left frame under Chronology, users can enter a topic name or scroll through a list of topics. Users may also search the Romantic Chronology for specific entries by choosing the Search or the Advanced search options. The search feature allows users to generate a customized list of events that fit their particular interest.
The Link Archive serves as a gateway to other reference information, documents, texts, full‐text articles, graphic items and Web links. This archive can be browsed alphabetically or searched by keyword or URL or category. The advanced search allows additional options for searching by site title, description, or type or by Web creator information.
The developers of this site also provide their users with information about the history and philosophy of the site as well as information about how to use the Chronology. Like many scholarly Web sites, this one has grown in content and usability over the years.
The Chronology interface is now in its second generation. By adding interactivity to their first interface of large static HTML tables, the developers have created a database‐driven site that can generate Web pages as users request them. Though the use of frames can be a bit overwhelming at first, the frames do serve to maximize the functionality for viewing content from a variety of resources while still maintaining the ability for users to navigate within the site.
To ensure that the site will continue to grow, the editors solicit contributions from the Romanticism community at large. A built‐in developer’s gateway also makes maintaining and updating the database an easy task for multiple editors. Authorized editors can create, edit, or delete records through a Web browser at any location.
Over the past five years the Romantic Chronology’s developers have created an excellent resource for students and scholars. This site is a wonderful work in progress that will continue to become increasingly valuable as a scholarly research tool.
