THIS ISSUE - ONLINE BOOKS:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1475 - 1700 NOW ONLINE
Early English Books Online includes most books published in the English language anywhere in the world from 1475 to 1700, including the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's quartos, and works by Malory, Spenser, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, Galileo as well as primary sources -- such as pamphlets, proclamations, prayer books, almanacs, calendars, etc.
It is a good source for tracing the development of typographical & grammatical conventions such as the development of paragraphing, commas, etc. as well as for tracking the standardization of the English language and the development of literary forms and conventions such as the article and the novel. The books also include a considerable number of images such as maps, plates, coats of arms, woodcuts, copper engravings and other illustrations.
This resource was made possible through the UT System Academic Library Collections Enhancement Program. It was purchased by the General Libraries and is available at all UT System component institutions.
This database is still in development (UT was the first purchaser) and it will achieve a critical mass of full-text images at the end of April. The 96,000 titles that are currently being converted to digital format have previously only been available to scholars willing to travel to libraries in several continents. It represents an incomparable web-based research collection for scholars in English literature, history, linguistics, the fine arts, and the history of printing.
These texts will be available for viewing within a web browser in two different formats: DJVU and PDF. Every page has been optimized for web viewing, with care being taken to preserve the water stains, as well as insect and bomb damage that the physical volumes have sustained over the centuries. These images are delivered via AT&T's new high compression DJVU system which keeps Internet delivery time to a minimum. For those users who prefer PDF, the material will also be available in this format, though most of the currently available images are in DJVU. The interface has been tested with various focus groups in order to be useful to both the freshman, and the experienced professional scholar.
DJVU allows you to enlarge or shrink the image, to separately view the different image layers such as to view the page background without the text, to view the text or drawings only separate from the background, to color correct the images, to vary the print quality, etc. To access these DJVU controls with a windows machine - click the right mouse button, with a Mac press the control key while clicking the mouse.
Early English Books Online may be access via UT Library Online's test menu http://www.lib.utexas.edu/indexes/tests.html until later this year when it will be moved to the Indexes, Abstracts, and Full-Text link.
TESTING WEB VERSIONS OF CURRENT ACADEMIC BOOKS FROM MAINSTREAM PUBLISHERS
The library is interested in providing both the earliest printed books and the most current printed books via the web -- if this format proves to be practical within the scholarly community. As part of the library's ongoing responsibilities, we have been in discussion with several vendors whose goals are to make contemporary scholarly books available over the web in much the same manner as the library currently licenses databases and electronic journals for the entire campus community. There are some remaining technical issues, and negotiations have occasionally hit snags over "rights" disagreements, but the basic questions revolve around whether a scholar would actually want to read books online.
For now, the library's interests are confined to titles for reserves, reference books, books with heavy short-term popularity, heavily-used classics, and convenience titles in which a reader might have a reason to check a few pages of the book, but not to read the entire volume. We don't know if providing access to titles such as these over the web would prove useful or not. We do not have current plans to pursue web editions of those books that are studied, pondered, perused, and contemplated at length. We do, however, plan within the next few months to conduct a test of a web book vendor who has rights to over 20,000 in-print academic titles, including titles from high profile university presses and commercial scholarly publishers. The library would purchase permanent rights to these web books in the same manner as the library purchases printed books now. Whether this will ultimately prove practical is anyone's guess, but we expect to see additional vendors offering these types of services in the near future, and we will continue to test them as they appear.
COSTS OF WEB JOURNALS VERSUS PRINTED JOURNALS
The fixed cost of purchasing a journal, other than the subscription price, depends on the number of bindings and number of issues a year, but on average it is $62.96 (1996). This is the cost of cataloging, processing, binding, storing, etc. each title and includes the costs of utilities, and shelf space. This is a nationally used cost figure based on the study of several university libraries. We do not have comparable cost figures for electronic journals. Electronic journals have high library start-up costs because they typically involve months of work by high-level library staff to resolve contractual, intellectual property, and technical issues before the subscription begins. But once electronic access has begun, most of the ongoing costs involve relatively minor accounting, cataloging, and server procedures necessary to maintain the subscription and insure access to the licensed volumes. In the future there will be additional costs and overhead resources involved with linking journal articles directly to a mix of indexing and cataloging databases. In general, the overhead costs with electronic journals are considerably lower than those of print journals. And in many cases, the basic subscription price of electronic journals is also less than their print equivalent.
COSTS OF WEB BOOKS VERSUS PRINTED BOOKS
The fixed library cost of processing a book, other than its price, is approximately $60 per volume. Again, this is a national cost figure and reflects the costs of cataloging, processing, entering it into international databases, security stripping, bookshelves, etc. This is why libraries are increasingly careful about adding gifts to the collection -- with processing, cataloging and storage costs of $60 per book, gifts are not free. Librarians are familiar with this figure, as well as with related numbers such as the fact that an average book takes up 0.477 cubic feet of space and incurs fixed costs of 60 cents a year for utilities and space. Librarians know that re-shelving costs in a standard library are approximately 10 cents per item per occurrence, that a security strip cost 23 cents a book, that an applied spine label costs $1.05, and so forth and so on. Reducing these costs is part of the reason that librarians are willing to consider online books -- but any format that is frustrating, impractical, or difficult to use is no bargain, no matter what the price. In the end the library's mission is to provide scholarly information in a timely manner and in a convenient and usable format. To this end librarians are keeping their minds open and exploring all available options, but with all the changes afoot in publishing and information technology, the library will need continuing advice as to what options work best for each discipline. Part of the purpose for this issue of LIBRARY NEWS is to make you aware that online books are becoming an increasing possibility, and to let you know that the library will continue to conduct tests, seek advice, and discuss all reasonable new scholarly communication options as they become available.
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