Books. Everywhere just BOOKS!

Books are an essential part of your studies. You need them for research or they might be required reading material for a course. But what if you have an entire list of books to read?

This is the case here at the Institute of American and British Studies at the University of Hamburg. Students are supposed to have read quite a long list of books at the end of their studies. But it is difficult to fit in another pile of books in your studies during the semester. And in the lecture-free time you are supposed to write your term papers. So we came up with an idea to make essential knowledge available to our fellow students. The concept is to create a wiki that contains information regarding the books on the reading list. A wiki will give us the possibility of distinguishing between British and American literature. Also we can add other columns like "Authors" or "Literature periods".

The general question accompanying us during our project is, how can we make students aware of this database and how will it effect their studies? The first task for our group will be to create that wiki with its basic structure. Furthermore we will have to define what information we regard essential. And we need a way to get a response from fellow students.

In addition to the books of the reading list, the wiki can also provide information on poems or songs that students are supposed to read during their studies at the University of Hamburg.

Of course, we will not be able to go work on all the literature that is on the list due to limited time. We will try to work on as much books/poems/etc as possible though. Maybe, in the end, we will hava a wiki that other students can also contribute information to. Thus, our wiki could be a proper source when it comes to research on the items of the reading list.

Edited by HH