Etexts: free scholarly resources reviewed

Abstract

Academic libraries and research institutions such as state libraries have been expending considerable resources over the past few years on digitising collections such as those significant for local history, or for literary criticism. During 2002, the University of Melbourne Information Division staff evaluated three etext centres for their suitability as resources to support academic programmes. These are the Humanities Text Initiative (HTI), the Electronic Text Center (ETC) and the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS). A set of defined criteria for evaluating the etext centres was created and applied. The paper reports on the evaluation and the conclusions reached. Appendices provide an annotated list of similar, useful sites, a table outlining the results of applying the evaluation criteria to 3 etext centres, and a table comparing the results of a search in one etext centre against the recommended readings in a number of University of Melbourne subjects.