Windows and Mirrors in Local Bookstores, Winter 2022

The Project

The Windows and Mirrors site began with an idea for a class project in an undergraduate course called "'We Need Diverse Books': Children's Literature as Art and Activism" in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa in the winter term of 2022. In the course, students read and analyzed a selection of exciting recent children’s and young adult literature by diverse authors and featuring diverse adventurers navigating their worlds across a number of genres, including picturebooks, a graphic novel, contemporary realism, and magical realism. While the class studied the artistry of the books, they also addressed questions about diversity and representation in literature produced for this most vulnerable and important audience.

Under the direction of Professor Kelly St-Jacques and with the guidance and assistance of Digital Humanities Support Specialist Roxanne Lafleur, students embarked on a scaffolded, multi-stage research project that aimed to apply some of the tools and resources of the digital humanities to an investigation of the diversity of representation (race, gender, sexuality, ability) in promininent displays of books for children and young adults.

Students were organized into groups of three or four. During the period from January 20th-24th, each group went to a local bookstore (either a chain store or an independent book shop), where they photographed a display of books for children or young adults. It was from these photos that they worked for the rest of the term.

The project unfolded in three stages.

The scaffolded assignment

Stage 1: Introduction to cataloguing

In this initial stage, each group of students worked on learning to catalogue first their store and then a single book from their display and its creator(s). With instruction from our Digital Humanities Support Specialist and the help of a detailed guide, students learned how to gather the information they needed to catalogue the metadata for the store, the book, and its creators (author, illustrator, etc.) using Dublin Core and Item Type Metadata in an Omeka-based project.

NOTE: Information on the cataloguing decisions they had to make and about how we arrived at the vocabulary list for the project can be found via the "Browse by Tags" area of this Windows and Mirrors site.

Stage 2: Cataloguing more of the display

In the second stage of the project, each student catalogued an additional four books. The aim was that as a group, they would catalogue either the majority of the books in the display or at least a visible and concentrated section of that display. The group worked together to ensure all entries were complete and correctly formatted. Students were given the responsibility for correcting the errors that were pointed out to them. Because they were faced with new tools and a great deal of information, it is possible that some errors in cataloguing will have persisted into the final exhibit.

Stage 3: The exhibits -- telling the story of the display

The final stage of the project was the creation of an online exhibit telling the story of the display. Using Omeka’s Exhibit Builder and Neatline plugins, students introduced their specific display and then explained what they found there. Each group created its own mini website within this site, with pages introducing their display and then explaining what they found there. Working from a very small sample size, students understood that they could not make sweeping assumptions about the overall diversity in offerings of books for young readers (though some were tempted to make such assumptions); what they could do was to come to conclusions about the kinds of windows and mirrors that were available to shoppers who were choosing a book from their particular display. Each student in the group also "pitched" one book as a valuable addition to a future course in Children's or Young Adult Literature.

NOTE: In the final stages of the project, during a “work in progress” session, the terminology for gender was modified. Some student exhibits may still include the terms "male" and "female" in their discussions of gender diversity in their displays, instead of the new terms “girl/woman” and “boy/man.”

The Exhibits

Children's Literature Shelf: Perfect Books (Vera Hadzic, Daniel Mahoney, Julia Pilon)
Books on Beechwood YA Novels (Cassandra Eliodor, Emily Huang, Petronie Kabengele)
"Favourite Friends" at Indigo on Innes (Kassandra Giroux, Kian Lam, Anza Rizwan, Samantha Toh)
Singing Pebble Books Teen Display (Katherine Jenkinson, Sarah Reinprecht-Lackner, Ellie Wilson)
Perfect Books Young Adult Section (Elizabeth Plamondon, Nadia Sule)
Books in "All Are Welcome" Display at Indigo on Innes (Kassandra Coleman, Matthew Favreau, Kenzie Hofmann, Nathan Piggott)
Kids' Bestsellers at Indigo Barrhaven (Camille Labelle, Piper Lynch, Zoe Lyle-Hayward, Hailey Otten)
Barely Bruised Books YA Fiction (Cailyn Murison, Rayn Smeathers, Christine Trivino)
Chapters Rideau #BookTok (Eliana Aiello, Conrad Fitzgerald, Taylor Woods)