- 325 views
- 695 downloads
Judging a Book By Its Cover: Bringing the Digital Humanities into Reader’s Advisory
-
- Author / Creator
- Gerlitz, Laura M
-
This study sets out to examine recurring themes found on book wrappers published by Harlequin in their first seventeen years as a form of marketing strategy. Through the use of specific image and text patterns that correspond to common themes found in paperback genres, Harlequin was able to appeal to targeted audiences, competing with other early reprint companies and eventually become the colossal modern publishing company of today. A unique approach using several digital humanities methods, namely text and image analyses, and data visualizations, will be employed to examine a special collection of several hundred wrappers. An interdisciplinary approach to research in book history will be taken, utilizing a blend of methods from digital humanities, and theories from library and information studies, humanities, and communication studies. The resulting patterns will be connected to reader’s advisory as appeal factors in successful book selection by readers.
-
- Graduation date
- Spring 2019
-
- Type of Item
- Thesis
-
- Degree
- Master of Arts/Master of Library and Information Studies
-
- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.