Put simply, Manifold can do a lot! The platform is designed for collaborative reading and creative multimedia publishing bridging a variety of subjects and formats.
Manifold Projects can be as simple as single texts published in an accessible, digital, and open access format with a table of contents and basic metadata. Alternately, Projects might also incorporate digitized archival materials as Resources related to the texts.
For example, this digital edition of Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mandy Abokhair seeks to bring together Mary Shelley’s original manuscript pages with a free, online version of the text. Seeing the manuscript pages alongside the digital text helps to foster an understanding of where texts originate as well as providing a unique insight into Mary Shelley’s thought process. Thanks to Manifold’s capacity to join multiple Texts within one Project, this digital edition allows readers to explore Frankenstein in a new way that incorporates both published and unpublished texts.
Manifold users can also use Projects to showcase catalogs or archives for exhibitions and collections affiliated with NYU. Such Projects might focus on a mix of Resources and media types and to showcase materials displayed elsewhere while providing further context and accessible browsing.
The 2022 catalog *This Is Not A Drill*: Artistic Perspectives on the Climate Emergency, Technology and Equity recreates the eponymous exhibition on view in the Mamdouha Bobst Gallery at Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, from September 28-December 4, 2022.
NYU Manifold also allows individual scholars to publish multimedia essays or monographic Projects in accessible and creative formats.
One such Project is An Extremely Brief History of How Video Has Changed the World, developed by Israt Abedin during her research as an intern at NYU-TV. Their Project presents a history of video and related technology and highlights the many ways we utilize and interact with video.
Journals in Manifold represent a highly useful feature of the platform for publishing “Issues” (essentially, serialized Projects) collected in volumes and journals much like other forms of journal publishing.
For example, Bridging Fields: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Journal of Library and Information Sciences publishes the work of library and information science students working across disciplines. The journal is published by students and educators within the Dual Degree Program at New York University and Long Island University and is maintained by student editors enrolled in the program along with NYU Libraries staff.