AustLit

During the past university semester (semester 1, 2016), AustLit has been fortunate to have two interns working on two very different but equally fascinating projects. Now that both interns have wound up their projects, it's time for us to reveal the results of their works, in the online exhibitions that they have curated.

Below, Annalijse Keech, whose work you may have been following on the #AustLitSFF hashtag, talks about her experience in enhancing the records for AustLit's full-text speculative fiction collection.

You can explore Annalijse's exhibition, Australian Speculative Fiction, here.

By Annalijse Keech

Before starting my internship at AustLit, I had little knowledge about working with databases and the depth of research surrounding them. With the help from the staff at AustLit, I became familiar with how to use this database, learning how to add and edit records and retrieve relevant reviews and information in the process. It was then decided that my time throughout the internship would be mainly focused around researching and editing a collection of full text Australian speculative fiction works, designing an exhibition that would display the main findings from this research.

My final exhibition focused around the theme of lost civilisations, a theme that appeared consistently through many of the novels. Many writers in the 19th and 20th century were fascinated with the Australian Outback, leading to an array of novels that theorised what could exist in such a vast land. The exhibition gives an overview of these concepts, discusses and analyses key novels, and provides links to reviews that demonstrate societal reactions to the novels at the time of their publication.