Welcome to Infinite Anthologies - a Digital Scholarly Edition about science fiction stories in early 20th century Australian newspapers

This is the future location of the creative component for a PhD project by Neil Hogan at the Australian National University

Modules will be added as designed but it is envisaged that most of the project will not be accessible to the public until January 2026.

Here is a rough guide as to what it should look like:

Home page:

Divided into:

A menu across the top featuring links to various project notes.

An above-the-fold header section with notes and a dynamic space related book cover image along with a list of titles sorted by 'space' relevance

Below this, science words and articles linked to the Trove database. (With a backup archive if Trove fails)

In the second column, a list of science fiction stories linked for read-only to the To Be Continued database. (Logging in switches this to the annotated versions that can be exported.)

At the bottom, download / export directions and option buttons and external reference links.

Actions

Anyone can read the stories online for free simply by following the links to the To Be Continued database, but exporting with Neil's annotations, along with a cover, requires a free account. (Each time a new cover is generated there is a minor cost. After the project is complete, website advertising will be added to cover this cost. Accounts will always be free.)

When a logged in user clicks on 'sort' with a preferred science word, the stories on the right sort into most relevant to least relevant, with stories that have no relevance disappearing. The cover on the left is replaced with a cover relevant to the science word chosen. A message pops up saying, 'this anthology is ready to be exported. Click on the export button to download the pdf'.

Secondary actions

The user may not want all the stories offered. Delete icons appear once sorting commences. Each time a story is deleted, the same 'export' message will appear. The user can then export their chosen anthology. (While the graphical user interface will be accessible via computers, tablets and mobiles, at this stage I'm not yet sure the edit and export function will work on anything other than a Windows PC.)

Using a generative art system with static tags linked from the sort command, as well as replacing 'Compiled by Neil A. Hogan' with the logged in user's name, a completely new cover is created for every export.

Why infinite?

While there are a finite amount of stories and combinations, the possible covers are infinite.

Why do it this way?

This explores the concept of how readers perceive books. We're influenced by covers and stories chosen and themes and the order of stories in an anthology. From this project, everyone will receive these stories through slightly different lenses giving an extra dimension to the perception of them. Essentially each export is a relatively personalised ebook.

Concept Images

This image is an early draft of what the site might look like when a user first visits

Infinite Anthologies Default

This image is an early draft of what the site might look like when a user chooses 'Laboratory'

Infinite Anthologies Laboratory

This image is an early draft of what the site might look like if a user chooses 'Inventions'

Infinite Anthologies Inventions

Follow Neil's research at www.NeilHogan.com