Michael Edson                   

Evaluating Luminarium

 

                    Edited by Anninna Jokinen, the website entitled Luminarium is tripartite effort at cataloging the vast store of Medieval, Renaissance, and 17^th Century English literature-related sites available on the Internet. I am examining the portion of the site concerning medieval authors and texts, located at: http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/. My review is based upon the following criteria: the page’s authority, content, and organization.

                    Ostensibly, Luminarium is professional and authoritative. Each internal page is clearly signed and dated, displaying both a date of creation and of last update (the latter most recently occurred January 7, 2002). In addition, the site offers both contact information as well as a note from the editor detailing the origins and inspiration for her site. However, do not be misled by this initial scholarly scrupulosity—or the site’s air of sober intellectualism. Jokinen is not associated with any educational institution (thus the conspicuous absence of the .edu domain), and her only declared credentials—a BA in English from Temple University—are hardly grounds for assuming her expertise on the subject or confirming her contention that Luminarium “is scholarly and aims for accuracy at all times” (See “A Letter From the Editor”).

                    Paradoxically, the content of Luminarium serves both to bolster and weaken Jokinen’s scholarly claims. Comprised chiefly of links to other websites, Luminarium offers little internal content, thus making its authority less dependent on the site itself than on the quality of the external sources Luminarium supplies. Determining the reliability of the site’s internal content, nevertheless, remains problematic. While her writing is grammatically accurate, Jokinen’s citations are sometimes missing, and the nature of these undocumented pages—whether original or synthesized from a larger source—is not always clear. Either way, the ultimate origin of many of Luminarium’s pages—especially the “Selected Medieval Lyrics” page—is doubtful. Comparatively, Jokinen’s many reputable external links range widely, from Bartleby.com and various university pages (including the vast Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia), to sites of a more general nature, like the Catholic Encyclopedia. In most cases, these external links are functional (I only endured a very few instances of “Page Not Found” or “Forbidden”), and most of the sites to which they direct one are scholarly, up-to-date, and well documented. Yet the question still remains: What criteria, beyond availability, guide Jokinen’s selection of these external pages? Her failure to provide a standard for selection should make the intrepid Internet Medievalist wary when navigating the abundant sources offered by Luminarium. Obviously, a significant difference in quality may exist between an online essay about Langland by a professor at Thomas Nelson Community College and a comparable essay by a professor from the University of Pennsylvania, although both essays are “scholarly” and found in Luminarium.

In terms of organization, Luminarium is logically constructed and easy to navigate. The materials—biographies, bibliographies, texts, and essays—are sensibly organized according to the major authors and genres in medieval literature to which they relate, with broader resources concerning medieval art and history, or the roles of medieval women, located under the heading “Additional Resources.” Sources are found quickly and easily, making Luminarium useful and informative for student research. Ultimately, Luminarium is just as Jokinen calls it in her Editor’s note: “a starting point for students and enthusiasts”—but not necessarily a site for scholars. As students, we should use Luminarium, but, as with many online sources, use it with caution.