Date: Wed, 05 Apr 95 14:12:16 EST
From: David Fahey <DFAHEY@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>
(Crosslisted from VICTORIA listserv group)
From: pub-info@UKOLN.BATH.AC.UK
Subject: <No subject given>
Subject: BH2B1201 - Resources for English Literature
Resources for English Literature. - 2nd ed. / Ian Budden
This is an expanded version of a guide produced for a workshop
held at the University of Sussex; as such, it is in origin an
"in-house" product written for a specific occasion and makes
no claim to comprehensiveness. I would of course welcome any
comments as to inaccuracies or particularly glaring omissions.
It is written from a UK standpoint, and therefore has a bias
towards services easily available there, although several of
the products and online resources refered to are North
American. All the CD or disk products mentioned are PC based
(no products specific to Macs, Amigas, etc. are covered), but
material about the Internet or Janet is relevant to any
machine capable of accessing them.
I have not included prices for any commercial products, since
such information can go out of date quite quickly. If
you cannot obtain details you want from the suppliers, please
contact me and I will give you such information as I have.
Ian Budden,
University of Sussex Library.
Janet address: alfc6@uk.ac.sussex.central
Internet address: alfc6@central.sussex.ac.uk
Contents.
1. Finding out what is available
1.1. General Sources
1.2. Use of the Internet
2. Subject Databases
2.1. Databases available on CD-ROM
2.2. Databases available over JANET
3. Access to other Library Catalogues
3.1. UK
3.2. Catalogues available over the Internet
3.2.1. Lists of Internet-accessible Catalogues
3.2.2. Libraries of Particular Interest
4. Electronic Texts
4.1. CD-ROMs and Discs
4.2. Internet and other Online Sources
4.2.1. Available for consultation online
4.2.2. Available for retrieval online
5. Dictionaries
6. Lists of Files and Projects
7. Making it easier
7.1. Using Gopher
7.2. Using WAIS
8. Organisations
9. Electronic Discussion Groups and Bulletin Boards
9.1. Directories and Guides
9.2. Specific Groups
9.3. Electronic Journals and Newsletters
10. Text Analysis Programs
Appendix: Examples for Beginners
1. Some Examples of using Telnet and Hytelnet
1.1. Telnet
1.2. Hytelnet
2. Some Examples of using NISS and WAIS
2.1. NISS
2.2. WAIS
3. Examples of File Transfer
3.1. Project Gutenberg
3.2. The Online Book Initiative
4. Some Examples of using Gopher
4.1. Basic Use: 1
4.2. Basic Use: 2
4.3. Subject Searches: 1, Veronica
4.4. Subject Searches: 2, Subject Guides
4.5. Transferring a File using Gopher
1. Finding out what is available
1.1 General Sources
HUMBUL (Humanities Bulletin Board)
Provides information on computing projects in the
Humanities.
Access: From your local machine prompt, type telnet
vax.ox.ac.uk (or telnet 129.67.1.13). Give both username
and password as OXHUMBUL.You will be asked to give your
name if this is the first time you have used the system.
After that, you are presented with a Main Menu, from
which you can go to whichever section of the system you
wish. For more detail as to what it contains, try option
T, which provides a detailed breakdown of contents.
HUMBUL, like the NISS Bulletin Board, provides facilities
to transport sections that interest you into your own
user area on your local computer. Instructions are at the
bottom of each screen.
Two other, more general, bulletin boards contain relevant
information:
The NISS Bulletin Board
Get to the NISS gateway (telnet niss.ac.uk), then choose
option A. Uses same software as HUMBUL.
BUBL (Bulletin Board for Libraries)
This is now available as a gopher server and contains
much general information.
Access: the easiest ways are either to type gopher
ukoln.bath.ac.uk or gopher bubl.bath.ac.uk at your local
machine prompt, or to get on NISS, then choose option T
Bibliographic Services, then option W, BUBL.
You can either search the database by keywords (option 4
on Main Menu) or by section (option 2 on Main Menu);
Sections BA and BC provide a lot of guidance on the use
of the Internet, Sections BH and D list directories of
telnet and ftp addresses, and Section S gives details of
several electronic texts projects.
Once you have finished reading a section (or if you
interrupt your reading by typing q), you will be offered
the facilty to mail it to your own machine.
Easy subject searching of BUBL is available via WAIS;
see section 7.2 below.
1.2 Use of the Internet
There are several lists which provide assistance both on the
use of the Internet and on sources of information on specific
subjects; again, many of these are available over BUBL,
sections B and D, or various Internet locations, e.g..
Information sources: the Internet and computer-mediated
communication / John December
Lists files/books giving guidance to use of the Internet,
plus details of societies. organisations and newsgroups.
ftp: ftp.rpi.edu
directory: pub/communications
file: internet-cmc
Special Internet Connections (also referred to as Internet
Services List) / compiled by Scott Yanoff
Lists by name internet information sources available
interactively via telnet, or providing sources of files
via ftp.
ftp: csd4.csd.uwm.edu (129.89.7.4)
directory: pub
filename: inet.services.txt
List of ftp sites
ftp: pilot.njin.net
directory: pub/ftp-list
file: ftp.list
SURAnet guide to selected internet resources
Lists internet resources (ftp sites, telnet, e-journals)
for a wide range of subjects and topics
ftp: ftp.sura.net
directory: pub/nic
file: infoguide.m-yy.txt (where m-yy stands for month and
year)
Use of the program archie to find ftp sites is covered in
section DE4 of BUBL; also, consult your Computing Centre to
find out whether you have a local implementation mounted.
2. Subject Databases
2.1. Databases available on CD-ROM
BLGC
The British Library Catalogue of Printed Books to
1975.Contains 5.7 million records, listing virtually
every book published in the UK until 1975, plus large non-
British collections.
From: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd,
Cambridge Place,
Cambridge,
CB2 1NR.
Tel: 0223 311479
Fax: 0223 301278 or 0223 66440
MLA International Bibliography
Covers articles in literature, linguistics and folklore
in over 3000 journals since 1981. Some books and
dissertations are also covered.
From: Silver Platter,
10 Barley Mow Passage,
Chiswick,
London,
W4 4PH.
Tel: 081 995 8242
Fax: 081 995 5159
2.2. Databases available over JANET
All these are available to subscribing higher education
institutions through CHEST deals, and all require usernames
and passwords to access. Consult the relevant people in your
Library or Computer Centre to confirm whether or not your
institution has access to any of them.
BIDS-ISI
This provides access to the Arts and Humanities Citation
Index, covering a whole range of humanities subjects. It
can be searched not only by conventional methods, but by
searching on cited references.
BIDS-Inside Information
Indexes the articles in the 10,000 most popular journals
requested from the British Library's Serials Department.
All these journals are searched simultaneously; there is
no "humanities subsection".
OCLC First Search
Provides access to details of books and journal articles
held by a very large number of United States libraries.
Consists of:
(i) general files -WorldCat (catalogue of books)
Article1st (citations to articles in 11,000
journals)
Contents1st (details of contents of recent
journals)
(ii) files of especial relevance to broad subject
areas.
For the Arts and Humanities, we have access to
the Humanities Index and Art Index
Access via Niss. Choose option T, then D. From the front
menu, you can choose to do an "Arts and Humanities"
Search. You will then be given a chance to use the
general files, and those specific to Arts subjects.
3. Access to other Library Catalogues
3.1 UK
The easiest way to access other Library Catalogues in the UK
is to use the NISS Bulletin Board, which you can reach at the
telnet address NISS.AC.UK (or by typing CALL NISS from a PAD
prompt).
Choose R, Library Catalogues from the main NISS menu. You can
then follow the subsequent menu screens to get to where you
want.
3.2 Catalogues available over the Internet
3.2.1 Lists of Internet-accessible Catalogues
Lists of library catalogues, with their telnet addresses, can
be easily consulted online using the BUBL bulletin board,
section D. Several can also be retrieved over the Internet,
for example:
Internet-accessible Library Catalogs and Databases / editors
Art St.George and Ron Larsen
ftp: nic.cerf.net (192.102.249.3)
directory: internet/resources/library-catalog
file: library-catalogs-mm-yy.txt (where mm-yy are a month
and a year)
Library Opacs
For list of Internet opacs, send GET LIBRARY PACKAGE to
LISTSERV@UNMVM.BITNET
Using the Hytelnet program either from your own institution or
by choosing the Hytelnet or Libraries option when on various
gophers (see below) makes connecting to non-UK libraries
reasonably painless, if you don't know their telnet addresses.
3.2.2 Libraries of Particular Interest
CARL (Colorado Alliance of Research Databases)
Choice of searching
(i) Colorado catalogues,
(ii) current article indexes and access to other
catalogues, or
(iii) information databases; not all are available for
outside consultation, but a useful book review
compilation is.
Access: NISS (select option T from main menu), or
directly by telnet. Telnet address: PAC.CARL.ORG.
Dartmouth
Telnet address: LIB.DARTMOUTH.EDU.
Also allows interrogation of Bible, Shakespeare and
Project Dante files; see section 4.2.1 below.
LOCIS
Library of Congress Information Service.
telnet address: LOCIS.LOC.GOV.
Also available over NISS, option V from Main Menu.
MELVYL (University of California Libraries)
Access: NISS (select option T from main menu), or
directly by telnet. Telnet address: MELVYL.UCOP.EDU.
4. Electronic Texts
4.1. CD-ROMS and Discs
British National Corpus
In preparation.
Contact: Jeremy Clear,
Oxford University Press,
Walton Street,
OXFORD,
OX2 6DP.
Tel: 0865 56767
Fax: 0865 56646
email: jhclear@vax.ox.ac.uk.
The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry on CD-ROM.
Contains Granger's Index (8th and 9th editions), Columbia
Granger's Guide to poetry anthologies, Columbia Granger's
Dictionary of poetry quotations, plus text of 8,500
poems.
From: Columbia University Press
10 Watlington Road
Cowley
Oxford
OX4 5NF
Tel: 0865-748405
Fax: 0865-748401
Complete Shakespeare in American and Queen's English
CD-ROM
From: CMC ReSearch, Inc.
7150 SW Hampton,
Suite C-120
Portland
OR 97223.
Tel: (503) 639-3395
Fax: (503) 639-1796
selling through Computer Direct mail order company
Desktop Bookshop
CD-ROM. 2,000 literary and historical works. ASCII
format.
From: Unica,
Stockport
The English Poetry Full-Text Database
CD-ROM. Full text of 1350 poets 600-1900 (based on the
listings in the NCBEL). SGML markup. Runs under Windows.
First instalment (containing Victorian poets and Middle
English Romances) currently available; remaining disks
(anticipated number 4) in preparation. Discount for
advance orders.
From: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd,
Cambridge Place,
CAMBRIDGE,
CB2 1NR.
Tel: 0223 311479
Fax: 0223 66440
The Ex Libris Series, from Nimbus Records
CD-ROMs. Novels of Jane Austen and the Brontes, currently
available; Dickens and Hardy to follow. Illustrations
included. Bookface software used for textual access.
From: Nimbus Information Systems,
Wyastone Leys,
Monmouth,
Gwent,
NP5 3SR.
The Greatest Literary Works of All Time
CD-ROM from Project Gutenberg. Seems to be mainly Bible
plus U.S. literary works.
Johnston & Company
Shakespeare (Riverside edition) and U.S. writers from the
Library of America series, on disk as well as CD-ROM.
Johnston also market the text analysis program
Wordcruncher.
From: Johnston & Company
Electronic Publishers
Post Office Box 446
American Fork
Utah 84003
Tel: (801) - 756 - 1111
Fax: (801) - 756 - 0242
Library of the Future
CD-ROM containing more than 450 classical, cultural,
literary and religious titles (Shakespeare, Qu'ran,
Chaucer, Sherlock Holmes).
From: World Library Inc.
12894 Haster Street
Garden Grove
CA 92640
Lately offered at a reduced rate by DAK Industries to
those who bought a BSR CD-ROM reader from them. Address:
DAK Industries,
8200 Remmet Avenue,
Canoga Park,
CA 91304.
Tel: 800-325-0800
OUP's Oxford Electronic Text Library
Texts in ASCII format, with SGML markup. Available on
disk; site licensed copies at extra charge. Disks
available or announced include works by Jane Austen,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Chaucer, Hardy, Milton, Mary
Wollstonecraft, four Dickens novels, Lewis's The monk and
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Oxford Electronic Publishing
also supply a disk edition of Shakespeare.
For further details, contact:
Janet Caldwell,
Customer Service Manager, Electronic Publishing,
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, OXFORD, OX2 6DP.
Tel: 0865 267979
Fax: 0865 56646
Orders to:
Consumer Services,
Oxford University Press Distribution Services,
Saxon Way West,
CORBY,
Northants,
NN18 9ES.
Oxford Text Archive
This is a vast collection of literary and other texts, in
ASCII format, some marked up by one tagging structure or
another, others not. Being converted to TEI standards.
Most texts are only available to use for private study
and research; they can be got hold of by filling in an
order form, which can be obtained from the Archive. They
are supplied on disk, for which a small charge is made,
or by a recently introduced special file transfer service
available to those who have already signed this form.. A
few dictionaries and other texts are available via FTP
without the necessity to fill in the form. The up-to-date
catalogue is available for consultation on BUBL and
HUMBUL, or can be obtained via email (file name
OX$DOC:TEXTARCHIVE.LIST), or via ftp (directory name OTA,
within which you will find the catalogue plus such texts
as can be obtained this way); see below for email and ftp
addresses. It can also be searched using WAIS (see
section 7.2, below), and the ftp service can be accessed
over various gophers (try those that provide for subject
approaches, as suggested in 7.1, below).
Contact: Oxford Text Archive,
Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN
Tel: 0865-273238 (or 273200 via switchboard)
Fax: 0865-273275
Email:archive@uk.ac.oxford.vax
ftp: ota.ox.ac.uk or black.ox.ac.uk.[129.67.1.165]
Samizdat Express
Various public domain literary texts on disc, seemingly
from the collection mounted online by the Online Book
Inititiative (see under 5.2, below).
Contact: B&R Samizdat Express,
P.O. Box 161,
West Roxbury,
MA 02132.
email: samizdat@world.std.com.
4.2 Internet and other Online Sources
4.2.1 Available for consultation online
BIALIK
Poetry etexts.
Send interactive mail to BIALIK at BRANDEIS with the
command INDEX. Then send an interactive message over
Bitnet to the same address with the command GET [file
number for poem]. Contact LAV@BRANDEIS.BITNET for further
details.
Dartmouth (1) Dante Project
E-texts of Dante commentary, over the period since his
death, in the original languages. telnet address:
LIB.DARTMOUTH.EDU then CONNECT DANTE.
Brief description available by e-mail from
dante@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
Dartmouth (2) Shakespeare Texts
E-texts of Shakespeare's plays and poems, accessed by the
user providing a word, phrase, etc s/he wants to look
for.
telnet address: LIB.DARTMOUTH.EDU
then SELECT FILE S PLAYS
or SELECT FILE S SONNETS
Dartmouth (3) King James Bible
E-texts of Authorised Version of the Bible, accessed by
the user providing a word, phrase, etc they want to look
for.
telnet address: LIB.DARTMOUTH.EDU
then SELECT FILE BIBLE
Poetry:
Two collections of poetry, for reading online, are
available via the U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Faculty
Gopher (once at the Berkeley gopher, choose the menu
option OCF ON-LINE LIBRARY, followed by the menu option
"Poetry") and via WAIS (choose the source "poetry.src").
See section 7 below for how to use Gopher and Wais.
In addition, many of the texts produced by Project Gutenberg
(see section 4.2.2 below) are mounted at various American
libraries and other sites available via telnet, and can be
consulted at your terminal. They are probably best found using
Hytelnet (from the initial screen, choose "Other Information
Sources", then, from the subsequent screen, "Electronic
Books") or the easy Internet browsing facility, Gopher (see
section 7.1 below).
4.2.2 Available for Retrieval Online
As said above, many of these can also be consulted via Gopher,
which provides facilities to load them into your area of your
local computer quite easily. The Gutenberg files are available
over WAIS as proj-gutenberg.src.
Online Book Initiative
Files of e-texts, including many works of literature.
Some directories are fuller than others - the one for
Yeats includes quite a lot, whereas the one for Shelley
includes, at the time of writing, the text of Ozymandias
and no more.
Available over gopher; type gopher world.std.com at your
local machine prompt.
Also by ftp to world.std.com
directory: obi
At this point you have a choice of many separate
directories.
Index available by ftp from:
ftp.sura.net
directory: pub/nic
file: obi.directory.index
to subscribe to mailing list (general discussion), send a
message asking to join to:
obi-request@world.std.com.
Obi files also available by ftp from:
ftp.uu.net (Directory: doc/literary/obi)
unix.hensa.ac.uk (Directory: pub/uunet/doc/literary/obi)