Executives from ProQuest were present as Queen Elizabeth II officially launched an online view into royal history: a digital retrospective of the complete personal journals of Queen Victoria, enabling the first-ever access to the private records of one of the world's most influential public figures. With its expertise in making rare, fragile works accessible to broad audiences, ProQuest is a partner in the project along with University of Oxford's renowned Bodleian Libraries and the Royal Archives.
According to ProQuest, its 'sophisticated digitisation and search technologies have been combined with the content and subject expertise of the Bodleian Libraries and the Royal Archives. In eight months, the organisations have enabled 43,000 pages of Queen Victoria's thoughts and experiences to be explored in an image-rich and easy-to-use website – www.queenvictoriasjournals.org. The launch date marks the birthday of Queen Victoria and coincides with a 60-year reign of HM Queen Elizabeth II - a ‘Diamond Jubilee’ year milestone that is shared by both monarchs.
Queen Victoria's journals have never been published in their entirety before and were only accessible by appointment at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. Global public access to the website is available through June 30. After this a specialised version for libraries will become available from ProQuest, enabling access for scholars, researchers and the general public around the world.
Online access to Queen Victoria's Journals includes features for easy browsing and reading. Pages from the journals can be searched by date or place of writing, and transcriptions of each page–searchable by keyword are currently provided for the period up to 1840, with further releases planned throughout the year. An interactive timeline and drawings by Queen Victoria, along with essays about aspects of her life, authored by Sir Roy Strong, Laurence Goldman and Peter Ward-Jones among others, add further perspective.
