First let me say how very interesting I found the four
pilot studies set up for the NRG. They already set a
standard that will be a target to aspire to for all
subsequent work.

I have been thinking about the ways in which I would
expect to use the NRG, and from this trying to put
some priorities on the layout/composition from my own
point of view.

The prime section for me is the 'Notes on the Text',
which I think should come first and should be followed
by the story overview/commentary. The reader will
usually be part way through a work before wanting to
use the NRG, and I would prefer to finish the story
before having the plot summarised/commented upon. A
possibility would be to move the link to the text
notes from the bottom of the page to the top, so that
the user can easily make a choice.

The publication history is of secondary interest, and
in many ways I would prefer to see a completely
separate area or set of links, where this data is
collected

I visualise the NRG as a database with six (or more)
principal sections:-

1. Prose Collections and Novels - widely available
2. Verse Collections (individual volumes and the
Complete Verse) - widely available
3. Cross-volume generic grouping articles - website or
 Kipling Journal
4. Uncollected or difficult to obtain prose
5. Uncollected or difficult to obtain verse
6. Publication Histories - sourced from Harbord?

A reader would usually start by having a copy of some
work of type 1 or 2, and be looking for explanations
of a word or phrase. Data of type 3 (mainly the
prose), possibly with links from 1 or 4, would prompt
the enquirer to look further afield. Types 4 and 5
would provide leads to sources of the rarer works
which the enquirer is unlikely to have (eg Julian
Ralph's book of extracts from 'The Friend', or Prof.
Pinney's inclusion of the 'parnashian' letter to
Edmund Gosse). Type 6, the publication history of the
works, I see as a very specialised field (except for
the uncollected works), and would keep this separate
from the notes on types 1 and 2.

One last thought concerns the use of material that
already exists in the Harbord RG. I think that this
should be included in the NRG but that
differences/corrections/new information should be
shown in such a way as to make this obvious. I don't
think that italics would be suitable, but maybe a
different font or font size would do the trick.

With best regards

David Page
Harrow UK

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