Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
Volume 2.2 (May 1995)

Symposium Celebrates ECU's Millionth Volume

To celebrate the addition of its one-millionth volume, a 1598-1600 edition of Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, East Carolina University's Joyner Library held a one-day symposium on April 28 about both the future of information distribution in the electronic age and on Richard Hakluyt as an information expert in his own age.

Benjamin Speller of North Carolina Central University and Frederick G. Kilgour of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill spoke about the future of information distribution. Speller's talk, “Visualizing the Print Culture in the Information Age,” emphasized that the fear surrounding new technologies always seems to be the disappearance of print culture.However, noted Speller, computer technologies actually help produce and disseminate print materials.

Kilgour, in his talk “The Coming of the Virtual Library,” addressed issues concerning the virtual library, that is, library access through the personal computer. Kilgour said that electronic cataloguing will allow people to easily locate works. Electronic books, according to Kilgour, will provide the advantage of serving as databases that can be easily rearranged to gather information. Using the specific example of the Principal Navigations, Kilgour speculated that the printed form of the work would attain the status that medieval manuscripts now have, but it would also be useful as an electronic book, able to provide new information as its contents could be electronically “massaged.”

Louis DeVorsey, Jr., of the University of Georgia and H. G. Jones of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill spoke on Richard Hakluyt himself. DeVorsey’s presentation, “Richard Hakluyt, the Elizabethan Voice of Discovery,” treated Hakluyt the writer and compiler of exploration writing. DeVorsey placed Hakluyt’s works within the larger context of exploration. DeVorsey then spoke about Hakluyt’s works, from the compilations, such as the 1582 Diver Voyages and the Principal Navigations, to the translations, such as the accounts of Rene de Laudonnier’s voyages to North America translated in 1587, to his own original writings, such as the 1584 Discourse on the Western Planting.

Jones, in his talk “What in ‘l’ is the Difference?” addressed Hakluyt’s influence and the differences between the 1589 and 1598-1600 editions of the Principal Navigations. The difference in the editions is what Jones’ title refers to, the earlier edition spelling Principal with two ls and the latter with one. The major difference, according to Jones, is that the latter edition expanded on the first. The importance of the Principal Navigations to those doing Roanoke colonization related research is that most of what we know about the expeditions comes from Hakluyt.

Jones summarized the overall importance of information technology and of Hakluyt when he asked, “Why do we know about those expeditions today when relatively few Englishmen of their day knew about Cabot, Gilbert, Frobisher, or even Raleigh?” The answer is Richard Hakluyt’s permanent recording of their stories, being passed around in oral form and in manuscript, by putting them in print.

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