Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 335.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/
[1] From: Dick Ellis <ellis@indiana.edu> (64)
Subject: CIC Libraries Electronic Texts Initiative
INDIANA UNIVERSITY-BLOOMINGTON LIBRARIES
Main Library 10th and Jordan Streets Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-3403
NEWS RELEASE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Barbara Allen, Director, CIC Center for Library Initiatives
(bmallen@uiuc.edu) 217-333-8475
Lisa Champelli (lchampel@indiana.edu) 812-855-9294
CIC Library Directors Endorse
Collaborative Delivery of Electronic Texts
November 28, 1995
Representatives from the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)
member institutions (the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago)
have launched an effort to develop a collaborative process for the production
and networked distribution of electronic texts in the humanities. Their
initiative transpired from a meeting sponsored by the CIC library directors
and hosted by Indiana University's Library Electronic Text Resource Service
(LETRS) steering committee in October.
A number of the CIC-member universities -- including Indiana -- have been
deeply involved with electronic texts, observe LETRS co-directors Richard
Ellis and Mark Day. "This meeting provided the opportunity to discuss how
we can move forward as partners in these efforts, thereby providing access
to far more materials than could be made available through individual
effort," says Day.
At the two-day meeting, faculty and library, computing, and university
press staff from the CIC universities concerned with the production, support
and use of electronic texts identified their common interests and potential
collaborative projects. Participants examined current institutional options
for building local support structures during discussion sessions on electronic
text centers, facilitated by Anita Lowry, head of Information, Research, and
Instructional Services at the University of Iowa Libraries, and on wide-area
textual analysis systems, facilitated by John Price-Wilkin, Senior Associate
Librarian for the Humanities Text Initiative at the University of Michigan.
Participants also considered what users of electronic texts really want.
Jerome McGann, Professor of English at the University of Virginia, led a
discussion about the production and use of electronic texts for instruction
and research in the humanities. The meeting concluded with the working groups
presenting draft proposals for collaborative projects.
While the CIC expects more proposals will be forthcoming, the first set
of proposals "support CIC-wide development of digital collections for use by
our scholars and students," says Roger Clark, director of the CIC, noting that
the initiative will ultimately enable participating universities to
demonstrate the feasibility of seamless access to institutional and consortia
resources, and make it easier for all CIC member institutions to acquire and
deliver electronic text resources.
Elements of the initiative will include: providing networked access to
existing electronic text resources within the CIC; defining procedures and
policies for adding new resources; identifying and employing text markup
conventions and standards; sharing expertise across the CIC; and
collaboration in developing an abstract model and communications protocols for
text searching and retrieval.
"There are limitless possibilities for sharing the creation and
distribution of electronic texts across the CIC," says Ken Frazier,
Director of the General Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and Chair, CIC Library Directors. "This is an area where we can provide
value-added service to our university faculty, staff, and students, as
well as lead the nation in the collaborative design of such information
systems."
The CIC institutions participating in the initiative include the
universities of Chicago, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin-Madison; and Indiana, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State,
Pennsylvania State and Purdue universities. Established in 1958, the CIC has a
long history of cooperation in academic initiatives. In 1994, the CIC created
the CIC Center for Library Initiatives expressly for the purpose of leading
and coordinating library resource sharing efforts among the member
universities. The CIC homepage is available at http://www.cic.net/cic/cic.html
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