According to French literary theorist, Gérard Genette, paratexts are the aspects of a published work that surround the main text of a narrative (i.e. introductions, prefaces, marginalia, inscriptions, illustrations, etc.). However, finding these specific and sometimes ancillary parts of a literary work is difficult in the digital environment. As an increasingly important field of study in the humanities and digital humanities, paratextual scholarship can define readers’ engagement with books and other printed material, their degree of agency in reading a text, and the reading experience.

Important questions such as: how do we describe these materials when they lack a controlled vocabulary, how does one search for paratexts in the digital world, and how do paratexts inform culture and the reading experience will be explored during a facilitated discussion that could inform future projects with digital collections.

Omeka continues to be a popular content management platform for scholars, libraries, and museums interested in displaying digital objects or content. Its flexibility and search features make it attractive to a range of users with various interests.

This session aims to discuss Omeka as a tool and the types of plug-ins, for example, it contains.  It also aims to examine a few applied cases, such as  Digital Archiving Resources, Florida Memory, and Samsula Historical Archive, where it has been used successfully in and outside the classroom, and to better understand its limitations and possibilities.