Making the invisible visible: hyperlinked webcomics as alternative points of entry to the digitised Gertrude Bell Archive

ABSTRACT

Web environments can support non-specialist access to prestigious and complex scholarly archives. We report on the creation and evaluation of webcomics that incorporate hyperlinks, a technological innovation that makes digitised artefacts from the Gertrude Bell Archive visible to learners. This shows readers the need to examine the evidence on which interpretations are based: an issue fundamental to academic researchers and archivists, but that might otherwise be obscured in educational and entertainment media. Moving beyond the established use of digitised archives by academic researchers, we explore wider issues of access and use. Quantitative analytics suggest readers read all pages of the comic and accessed digitised sources. Qualitative feedback and consultation with young people found the hyperlinked webcomics to be credible comics in their own right as well as their value as situated points of entry to archive material. Observed reader behaviour identified opportunities to encourage more structured exploration of the digitised archive.

KEYWORDS:

• Webcomics
• digitised archive
• hyperlinks
• Gertrude Bell
• applied comics

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Newcastle University Library Education Outreach Team for their invaluable involvement in this project. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the symposium Gertrude Bell: Her Life, Work, and Legacy (Newcastle University 2017) and at Comics Forum conference (Leeds, 2016).

Data availability statement

The qualitative data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [LW] upon reasonable request. The quantitative data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available as the detail collected by Google Analytics could compromise the privacy of individuals.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Lydia Wysocki and John Miers note their respective ongoing practices as comics creators and publishers, and do not consider this a conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a small internal competitive grant from Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice (£4980 to cover artist-writer time, editorial time, web developer time, travel expenses; academic and archive team time as a contribution in kind).

Notes on contributors

Lydia Wysocki

Lydia Wysocki is a Research Associate in Education, and is also pursuing her PhD in Education (ESRC/NEDTC funded), at Newcastle University. She founded and leads Applied Comics Etc, working with comics creators and subject specialists to use comics for specific informative and educational purposes.

Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Newcastle University. His research is based mostly on the Eastern Mediterranean with a focus on Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. As Manager of the Gertrude Bell Photographic Archive he has a research interest in Bell and other archaeologists of the 19th and early 20th century.

John Miers

John Miers is a cartoonist and researcher at University of the Arts London (Central Saint Martins and London College of Communication). His interests include the connection between the comics medium and drawing practice, and the uses of visual metaphor.

Jane Webster

Jane Webster is Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at Newcastle University. She is an Historical Archaeologist in the widest sense of that term. Her research crosses traditional frontiers (both temporal and disciplinary) but focuses on colonial material culture. She leads the Newcastle University branches of the Young Archaeologists Club (clubs for children aged 8–18).

Brittany Coxon

Brittany Coxon is an artist, designer, illustrator and photographer based in Newcastle upon Tyne, with a specialism in making websites for artists, educators and researchers.