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How did the database get its name -gender
Inn?
The design and name of this database
are the result of an interdisciplinary project conducted
in cooperation with the Department of Art and Design at the Fachhochschule
Köln. The English word Inn is used to imply hospitality, openness
or, more generally, a place to meet.
In addition, inn is a German suffix which is often used to mark the
female sex (when referring to professions). Thus: "Lehrer" (male
teacher) and "Lehrerin" (female teacher), and the plural form
"Lehrerinnen” (female teachers). Feminist linguists have
suggested a different practice: Rather than using the form "inn" in
order to append, as it were, the female to the male they have suggested the
spelling "LehrerInnen" (with capital "I") as a generic
term, denoting both the female and male sex.
As yet, this form remains fairly rare in everyday German usage. It goes without
saying that gender Inn is keen to foster its wider use.
FAQ-Overview
How did gender Inn come into being?
Since 1987 bibliographic records
referring to secondary literature on feminist theory, feminist literary
criticism and gender studies have been systematically collected and recorded at
the chair of Prof. Natascha Würzbach at the
English
Department at the University of Cologne.
In 1990 the collected data were computerized using a specifically designed
feminist thesaurus. In cooperation with the
Regional Computing
Centre (RRZK) of the university all records were transferred in 1996 into an internet-database, thus
offering the opportunity for online-research.
The internet-database’s name "gender Inn" and its design are the
outcome of an interdisciplinary project conducted in
cooperation with the Department of Art and Design at the
Fachhochschule Köln in
the winter term 1996/97.
Project "Gender goes
Internet"
In response to an inquiry from Prof.
Natascha Würzbach and Ms Susanne Webel from the English Department at the
University of Cologne the
interdisciplinary cooperation project "Gender goes
Internet" came into being in 1996.
During the winter term 1996/97 four students (Nikola Berger, Jutta Frings,
Doris Ladwig und Marta Pasiek) from the Department of Art and Design at the
Fachhochschule Köln developed the Internet-database’s structure,
navigational elements and web-design.
The project was conducted by Prof. Dr. Uta Brandes and Designer Melanie
Völker, who is in charge of interdisciplinary
"lighthouse-projects" at the Department of Art and
Design.
gender Inn was first presented
to the public February 3, 1997.
FAQ-Overview
What kind of information do I find in gender
Inn?
The database consists of
bibliographic records pertaining to feminist literary criticism and gender
studies focussing on British and American literature. In addition, great
emphasis is placed upon the inclusion of general resources and introductory
texts in feminst theory.
As the database has a declared interdisciplinary orientation we also include
feminist literature on pedagogy, sociology, history and psychology.
Due to the huge increase of
publications in women’s and gender studies over the last years, the
database only covers monographs and essay collections. Journal articles are
only included in special cases.
There are also no monographs on particular authors which, as a rule, can be
easily found with the help of standard bibliographies such as the MLA. This
does not mean, however, that searching for literature on particular authors
like Virgina Woolf or Ntzotake Shange will produce no results.
gender Inn’s great
advantage is the quality of its indexing. Up to 20 keywords are assigned to
every document with the help of the feminist thesaurus. which has been
specifically designed to accommodate the needs of feminist research. As a
consequence, very detailed search terms are available. However, the thesaurus
is undergoing major improvements at the moment.
Comments and further
suggestions are welcome!
FAQ-Overview
What are the technical details behind gender Inn
?
At the moment the software to manage
the database is being changed from LIDOS to SQL.
Mr
Heinz
Stöwe from the university's
Regional Computing
Centre is doing all the necessary programming.
You will soon find more information
on the technical details.
FAQ-Overview
Can I borrow the books I researched in gender Inn
from them?
Unfortunately this is not possible.
gender Inn is a database and no library.The gender Innteam itself
borrows books from surrounding libraries on a regular basis and return them
after having added them to the database.
FAQ-Overview
What kinds of links are listed on the gender Inn
weblinks page?
The gender Inn Team is trying
to present a comprehensive choice of gender and women’s studies links,
with a strong focus on Anglo-American literary studies.
Primarily, the weblinks-page lists on-line databases where the visitors of
gender Inn may complete their search for gender and women’s studies
literature.
gender Inn also points to reading lists, bibliographies and metapages.
With the exception of literary studies, no pages concerned with a special field
of study (like feminst theology, feminist history, etc.) are listed.
FAQ-Overview
Who is the gender Inn - Team?
In 1987 the database was founded by
Prof. Natascha Würzbach as "Women’s and Gender Studies
Database". In 1997, the database was made available for search on the WWW.
The first team of women working for gender Inn were Josefine Danneberg, Annika
Monsees and Susanne Webel (project manager).
In April 1999 the project moved to the chair of Prof. Beate Neumeier. The
current team are Dirk Schulz (project manager) and
Astrid Recker.
FAQ-Overview
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