When I was younger, I fell in love with reading. Unfortunately as the years went on, I found myself reading less and less. Just as a baby, I always remember my mother reading to me before bedtime. I was always soothed to sleep by her gentle voice. Then when I got older, I continued the tradition by reading books till I fell asleep at night. High School came along and I quickly began reading more informational literature. While it was all interesting, I quickly began reading less and less for my enjoyment, and more because I just had to. This past summer, I have gotten back into reading for my true enjoyment. My fondest memory was when I got to read while sitting on the beach in Oregon. My new goal is to make reading pleasant rather than being tedious. I’m hoping that this course will open my eyes to new ways to love reading.
I never knew how enormous the digital literature public domain was. At first, it was truly overwhelming when I was browsing the sites looking for a book to read. I started by going down the list and thoroughly exploring each website. In high school, I actually happened to use Goodreads to read a couple of books for class. I enjoy how easy it is to search for literature on that website. However, I wanted to look at the literature public domain with a different perspective. I decided to take a look at the authors and titles of the top books that were found in the Goodreads Choice Awards 2021. Just by doing some quick research about the authors, I found out the majority were white. I was shocked to see that out of the top 8, that there weren’t any people of color. Of course, I know it’s the top rated book by the public, but I was still amazed to see no diversity. I thought back to Noble’s article in relation to search engines never being neutral. I found that I had to tediously search in relation to finding the neutrality on the literature websites.
I am also partially super indecisive so I searched the websites for a while before coming to a decision. I looked to the Serial Reader app where I found a book that was published in the late 1960s. It is called, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd written by Agatha Christie. While this book wasn’t exactly what I had my mind set on, I decided I wanted to try something that I would have never picked up before. I typically pick out my books in a physical bookstore so that way I can get a feel for the literature. The digital literature public domain definitely has its pros, as literature is more accessible for areas around the world. There are plenty of things needed to create a more inclusive and neutral selection online.
Ultimately in the end, digital literature still has a lot of room for improvement in my eyes. However, I am excited to get up close with the data and digital literature to gain a better understanding of digital humanities in the end.