When I first heard the news of the digitization, I thought, hey, now no one has to camp out in the Tulane archives. But after some searching, I have decided that the digital project does not make the papers as findable as one might suppose. If you find something online through the digital collection, great, use it. But if you do not find something by searching the digital collection, do not conclude that it is not there. You might just have been unable to find it.
I would give you the URL to the digital collection, but if you go to it, the search engine for the collection is not that good, and you will not find much. I went to the website and conducted several searchs including: a) Lumiansky, b) Coleridge, and c) Theseus. The website's search engine failed to find anything for those three searches. And they are important terms to understanding Toole.
A better way is just to use Google. If you search Google, use this template: tulane john kennedy toole digital [keyword]. By plugging in to the keyword slot a) Lumiansky, you get one good hit. You also get one good hit with b) Coleridge. You get no hits for c) Theseus, even though Toole wrote in an assignment in Prof. Lumiansky's class: "Egens’ [Egeus’s] philosophy is notably Boethian and is not out of context in The Knight’s Tale. After the lists have resulted in almost double tragedy he, as Theseus’ father, attempts to make some ‘consolation’ by suggesting that these events must be accepted. The thread of Boethian runs throughout this tale."
So the new digital collection is better than nothing, but it is no substitute for spending a week at the archives looking through the boxes (so there!).
