| Vol.
I, No. 5 | Cabin
Fever / Town Meeting | Feb.
19th, 2001 |
Links
to Books & Lit On-Line
Full-Text Libraries
The amount of info on the web is enormous, as anyone who's ever tried to run a
search can attest to. And, to put it all in context, best estimates say
that only a fraction, maybe 20 - 40 % of what's out there is actually making its
way to the search engines.
Well ... Here
at DownStreet, we'd like to try to help. So each issue, we post a
few links in Books & Lit to sites that might interest you. Sometimes
the links will be related to one another ... sometimes we'll just
offer up a somewhat random sampling. In either case, we think we might be
able to help you find the kind of site you've been looking for.
Of course, while we can't vouch for the fact that every link we provide will be
of interest to everyone, we do our best to filter out the noise and the
bustle. ...  | Reading
Room
Library of Congress |
Links
to Full-Text Libraries On-Line So, the roads are iced
and you're stuck at home. You never made it to the library or bookstore to
pick up that latest tome by your favorite author and you're bored out of your
mind. Don't despair. This is our Cabin Fever issue, and we're
here to help. ... This month's collection of links will
take you to libraries that actually serve up full-text, and not just
catalogues or bibliographies. ... And, just in case you get bored
reading, you can always jump over to this month's Links to Arts & Craft
On-Line and tour a few museums. ... Ok? ...
Ok. ... Literature
@ SunSITE SunSITE is the result of the combined
efforts of UC Berkeley and Sun Microsystems, and it's a contribution to some
of what's best on the net. This section, as is obvious from the title,
posts full-text manuscripts and critical essays of lit. ... The
listing isn't extensive, but if you've never gotten around to some of the
classics, or want to revisit them, this is good site to visit. So far,
the collection includes works from Jane Austen , Ambrose Bierce, Joseph
Conrad, Stephen Crane, Frederick Douglass, Emma Goldman, Jack London, Upton
Sinclair, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thoreau. In addition, and
probably the most extensive of the collections, if not sure to be the most
generally popular, is The Online Medieval & Classical Library.
Here, from early allegory, Arthurian legend & Icelandic sagas to
classical Greek and Latin texts and medieval Romances, you can find things
you've probably never even heard of before ... and some you have. But
not to worry, nearly all are available in translation, so you don't have to
bone up on Anglo-Saxon or Old French before you pay a visit.
.
The
list would be better if it was longer. But how can we complain?
This is still a site worth visiting.
Rating: **** [4 stars]
Project
Guttenberg Index The invention of the printing press
certainly changed the course of history. And since 1971, Michael Hart
and a cadre of volunteers have been looking to revolutionize things again
with Project Guttenberg. Their task is straightforward: to make
all important works of non-copyrighted lit available for free
electronically. And they're well on their way. ...
The lists of what's available are far too vast to even begin to itemize
here. But you can download zip files of all the lists from the site if
you like, or simply search for a title or author.
There are a few
things to understand here. Project Guttenberg's e-texts are not
pretty. There are no jackets with covers, and no illustrations.
They are in what's called ASCII -- the plainest of plain computer-generated
text. In fact, even words or phrases that are italicized or in bold in
the originals, here, are simply all caps. In addition, you won't find
anything esoteric, nor will you find anything terribly new.
{Copyright, for example, keeps the list of what's available pretty much to
things published before 1923; but that's still a fair bit, eh?!?} The
reasons for all this are simple: Project Guttenberg set out to make as
many of the classical texts of civilization available to as many people in a
form as readable by every machine as possible. And in this, they have
succeeded. ...
.
So
... If you want prettier text, or want to add you own illustrations,
you can always download the files, bring them up in your word processor, and
change them. But if you want text for research, or simply to read,
then
Rating: ***** [5 stars]
Library
of Congress -- Digital Collections & Programs
Ok. So
your taste doesn't run toward the classics. Then how's about a
multimedia extravaganza on American History? Or the history of just
about any other country in the world? ... Interested?
... Good. ... Then visit the Library of Congress's Digital
Collections & Programs. ... Here you'll find
selections like Meeting of Frontiers {"a bilingual, multimedia
English-Russian digital library that tells the story of the American
exploration and settlement of the West, the parallel exploration and
settlement of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the meeting of the
Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest"};
Country Studies/Area Handbooks {which provide a wealth of historical &
geographic info}; or Prints & Photographs {which, among other things,
includes images of some 2100 baseball cards, 4200 panoramic photos of U.S.
& foreign cities and landscapes, and more}. There are also legal
& legislative resources, as well as special resources for
librarians. But it's the American History offering -- entitled
"American Memory" -- that promises by far to be the most
appealing. ...
.
From African
Americans, Baseball Cards & the Civil War to Vaudeville, Woman Suffrage,
and WW I, it includes numerous photos, prints, recordings, motion pictures,
maps, and documents. The Nation's Forum Collection alone -- which
focuses on WW I and the subsequent election of 1020 -- offers 59 "sound
recordings of speeches by American leaders at the turn of the century,"
including: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel
Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John J. Pershing. ... Is dance your
thing? Then how's about a collection of Dance Manuals from 1490 to
1920, including one on how to read dance manuals? ... Film more
your thing? Then check out the offerings in the Early Motion Pictures
archive, including vaudeville, old Edison Co. sound & film, early
American animation, the Spanish-American War, before and after frames of the
Great S.F. Earthquake, or the last days of McKinley at the Pan-American
Exposition in 1901. ...
The Library of Congress isn't just
another library. And their on-line collections continue a long and
proud tradition. This is your tax dollars doing some of their best
work. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Rating: ***** [5 stars]
.
*******
******* If you know of any
links that you think are worthwhile, why not send them along to ...
links@downstreetmagazine.com
... If we agree, we'll be happy to include
them in an upcoming issue to pass the word along. ...
Thanks. *******
******* .
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