Electronic Text Centers

A number of Universities around the world are engaged in projects to assist users in the production and dissemination of e-texts. To this end, they have established centers within their institution. Some worth looking at are:

CETH (Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities): intended "To establish an intellectual framework for working with electronic texts in the humanities that will advance our understanding of the potential of electronic texts and satisfy the needs of research and teaching in the humanities. To disseminate information about the creation and use of high-quality electronic texts in the humanities."
http://www.ceth.rutgers.edu
Columbia University Libraries' Electronic Text Center: " a research and instructional facility of the Columbia University Libraries designed to help Columbia faculty and students incorporate computer-based textual and bibliographic information into their research, study, and teaching."
They include details of Electronic texts on the Internet with lists of online text collections arranged by language and subject.
Also at Columbia and of interest: Columbia University Digital Library Collections
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/ets/
The Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia: "combines an on-line archive of thousands of SGML-encoded electronic texts (some of which are publicly available) with a library-based Center housing hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. ... the Center is building a diverse and expanding user community locally, and providing a potential model for similar enterprises at other institutions."
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu
The Humanities Text Initiative at the University of Michigan: "... an umbrella organization for the acquisition, creation, and maintenance of electronic texts, as well as a mechanism for furthering the University's capabilities in the area of online text."
http://www.hti.umich.edu/
The Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS) at Indiana University: "... provides humanities-related electronic texts to the IU-Bloomington community on the internet and in the LETRS Humanities Computing Lab in the Main Library. LETRS also works to build and support a user community adept at the creation and use of electronic texts."
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/
SETIS: the Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service at the University of Sydney Library
http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au
Cornell University Electronic Text Center: The Electronic Text Center supports the research and instructional use of electronic texts, mainly primary sources in the humanities and social sciences, from a dedicated facility in Olin Library. Texts available include the Patrologia Latina, Goethes Werke auf CD-ROM, CETEDOC, Bar-Ilan's Judaica Library, Letters of Delegates to Congress (1774-1789), the Clarence Thomas Hearings, Civil War Newspapers, and ARTFL. The ETC has networked Macintosh and IBM workstations and scanning and OCR capabilities. The staff assists students, faculty, and staff in the use and creation of e-texts by providing consultation, point-of-use guides, class instruction, and a Web site.
Columbia University Electronic Text Service (ETS): ETS is a research and instructional facility of the Columbia University Libraries designed to help Columbia faculty and students incorporate computer-based textual and bibliographic information into their research, study, and teaching. ETS has machine-readable primary source texts, software programs for textual analysis and critical editing, hypermedia and database research tools in the humanities, bibliographic database management programs, IBM and Macintosh microcomputers, X terminals, and optical scanning equipment for the creation of machine-readable text. The ETS staff will provide demonstrations, workshops, and classes for students and faculty.
Beck Center for Electronic Collections and Services Emory University: The Beck Center collection is divided between stand alone and networked resources: The stand alone collection consists of more than 35 full-text and multimedia databases, most are on CD-ROM. The collection includes Access Russia, Admyte, Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts, the Interactive Atlas of Georgia, the Judaic Classics Library, and Medieval Realms. These titles can be accessed on one of the center's eight workstations. The networked collection consists of more than fifteen SGML databases. These databases are available through the World Wide Web, through Open Text's Webserver. These databases include the Database of African-American Poetry, the Patrologia Latina, the Oxford English Dictionary, and all of the texts available in Intellex's "Past Master" series. Commercial texts are restricted to use at Emory. PROJECTS: The Beck Center, in conjunction with ITD's Faculty Information Technololgy Center (FITC) is engaged in three full-text digitization projects: 1) Medieval Chartularies; 2) Ordination Sermons; 3) Women Writers. Texts are being marked up into SGML, and are TEI conformant. These texts will also be loaded onto our server, and made available both on and off campus through Open Text's Webserver.
Georgetown University , Center for Text and Technology: The Group has produced -- under agreements with professional societies, publishers, and software developers -- two dozen electronic versions of standard critical editions in philosophy, including key works by Hegel and Feuerbach. These works, and many other licensed and public-domain texts in the humanities, are made available over the campus network to the computing labs and electronic classrooms, the library's Electronic Information Resource Center, and faculty offices. The electronic editions in philosophy are also available for purchase. On the Internet, the Group's Deborah Everhart supports three Centers of Excellence on the University's Web home page: Labyrinth (Medieval Studies, developed by Deborah Everhart and Martin Irvine), Teaching the American Literatures (American Studies, developed by Randy Bass), and The Political Database of the Americas (Latin American Studies, developed by Peter Siavelis and Diana Bartholomew). On the Georgetown University gopher server (under #10 Computing) is the Catalogue of Projects in Electronic Text (listing primary texts in the humanities from commercial and academic developers). CPET is currently being renovated for delivery via the Web.
Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS). Indiana University: Access to various online etext sources such as the texts of the Victorian Women Writers Project (marked up in SGML and HTML) and LETRS's own Open Text system as well as detailed information about our history, services, and holdings (texts and tools).
University of Iowa Information Arcade: The purpose of the Information Arcade is to facilitate the integration of new information technologies into learning and research. In the Center, UI students, faculty, and staff can find a variety of resources for learning advanced information skills and for acquiring information in various formats. The Center provides access to a wide range of electronic source materials, with an emphasis on textual and multimedia databases; to OASIS and to other online catalogs and information sources on the Internet; and to equipment and software to support independent learning, classroom instruction, and research.
University of Iowa Scholarly Digital Resource Center: The Scholarly Digital Resources Center at the University of Iowa Libraries was established to foster the creation and use of digitized collections and resources of interest to the University of Iowa community. The Center is a Libraries-wide initiative, managed by the SDRC Management Committee, and many of its projects are in partnership with faculty from a wide range of disciplines. Activities of the Center include acquisition of digital collections, electronic publishing, digitizing of unique research materials, and providing access to digital collections located in other institutions. The SDRC is a resource for faculty and students interested in electronic publishing, or who wish to explore issues related to electronic scholarly communication. The creation of multimedia resources, building on the expertise and renown of the Information Arcade and the Information Commons, are a particular strength of the SDRC. Current ongoing initiatives of the SDRC include the Arts & Humanities Digital Resources Center, the Center for Electronic Resources in African Studies, and Virtual Exhibits.
Carrie: A Full-Text Electronic Library University of Kansas: Online texts and projects with an emphasis on history and social sciences.
University of Kentucky Electronic Information Access & Management Center: The University of Kentucky Libraries Electronic Information Access & Management Center primarily identifies and implements digital library standards and initiatives. As a part of its mission, the Center also manages and serves as a production center for the Kentuckiana Digital Library, part of the Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual Library's state-wide initiative to digitize archival material in the state of Kentucky. The Electronic Information Access and Management Center is located in William T. Young Library at the University of Kentucky. The Center is currently equipped with 4 digital library production workstations with specialized hardware and software for developing text encoding and imaging projects as well as Internet audio/video content. A fifth workstation controls a PhaseOne PowerPhase digital camera. The center emphasizes SGML/XML standards along with archival imaging practice. Our software infrastructure includes the DynaText/Web SGML/XML electronic publishing system and OCLC's SiteSearch database software with Record Builder.
Michigan State University Digital Sources Center (DSC): The DSC provides assistance with SGML/XML markup languages, digital sound, scanning, and numeric data sets. It is involved in a number of grant-funded digital publishing projects, including the National Gallery of the Spoken Word (part of the NSF-administered Digital Library Initiative-phase 2), and works closely with the Vincent Voice Library at MSU. The DSC also provides information about copyright. Appointments are recommended.
University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative (HTI): The HTI delivers SGML-encoded text collections in the humanities via the World Wide Web for the university library and for other universities participating in the SGML Server Program. Text creation activities include the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse and the American Verse Project. The HTI also collaborates with the UM Press in the delivery of their online publications, including the Middle English Dictionary.
University of Nebraska Electronic Text Center: The Electronic Text Center was established in 1999 to assist faculty and students in developing digital text projects that support the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's teaching, research, and service missions. Of special interest are humanities texts accessible online. The E-Text Center staff and faculty serve as consultants, providing information on relevant issues such as copyright, access, organization, and preservation. The Center sponsors workshops and roundtables, and provides a forum for the exploration of ideas related to the creation of digital content.
New York University The Studio, An Electronic Work Space: The Studio provides scholarly electronic resources and librarian support for computer-assisted research in non-technical disciplines. At the Studio, users can find full-text and non-print, electronic, scholarly, primary-source materials housed in Bobst Library, and the Studio Web site offers links to such resources available to the NYU community by subscription and for free on the Web.
Northwestern University Electronic Text Project: Through the Web server, the Elextronic Text Project provides to the Northwestern community access to the Oxford English Dictionary as well as electronic editions of works by Jane Austen, John Milton, Chaucer and Shakespeare and treatises by George Berkeley, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume and John Stuart Mill. The list of resources is growing.
University of Oregon Renascence Editions: Public domain English language texts originating 1477-1799. There are 110 titles at present. The mission has not changed: "A collection of texts in English or English translation, with emphasis on Renaissance thought. The purpose of the Scriptorum archive is two-fold: 1) to serve as a repository of portable texts suitable for faculty and student research, and 2) to serve as a publisher of such texts on behalf of students and faculty who elect to produce them."
Rice University Electronic Text Center: The ETC houses a growing number of stand-alone and online full-text resources and text analysis applications. The Center also features scanning equipment, several OCR applications, multimedia tools, and graphics software. ETC staff offer seminars and consultations for Rice faculty and students, sponsor technology showcases, and host regional workshops to promote the integration of technology into research and teaching.
Rutgers University Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH): CETH is a research and development center for the Humanities within the larger Scholarly Communication Center (SCC). CETH is currently researching grid computing for the Humanities using the experimental operating system from Bell labs, Plan 9. The SCC itself is a fully networked facility with over 70 workstations for research and instruction.
University of Chicago Electronic Text Services: ETS delivers variously-encoded text collections and reference works by way of the Web for the University of Chicago community and for other universities participating in a Chadwyck-Healey or Bibliopolis access agreement and for subscribers to ARTFL.
University of Virginia Electronic Text Center: The Center combines an on-line archive of tens of thousands of SGML and XML-encoded electronic texts and images with a library service that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. Through ongoing training sessions and support of teaching and research projects, the Center is building a diverse user community locally, serving thousands of users globally, and providing a model for similar humanities computing enterprises at other institutions.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Digital Library and Archives (formerly: Scholarly Communications Project): The Scholarly Communications Project began in 1989 by helping one faculty editor put a new journal online. Today it has 18 active titles and 5 "dead" titles. This is a library service provided for faculty editors at Virginia Tech as well as other universities. It is also a mirror site for MIT Press' ejournals. It provides access to online news reports from WDBJ7, the regional CBS affiliate designed and continues to oversee the library's electronic reserve system. Nationally and internationally known for ETDs (Electronic Theses and Dissertations), the collection has grown to over 2400. This is a result of the SCP collaboration with the VT Graduate School to design and implement all phases of the collection, from author submission, to Graduate School approval, to archiving and user access. Virginia Tech received a FIPSE grant which helped to establish the NDLTD (Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertatons) which now has over 80 universities members worldwide who have a combined collection of 7500 ETDs. The VT ImageBase is a database containing over 14,000 digital images with metadata based on an early implementation of the Dublin Core. SCP, which changed its name in July 1999 to the Digital Library and Archives, is a department within University Libraries at Virginia Tech. DLA continues to work with faculty from VT and other universities to put scholarly information online. Experimentation is an important activity, along with making the digital library truly a library.
Yale University Electronic Text Center: Thousands of electronic texts, primarily on cd-rom and floppy disk, in all areas of the Humanities. Textual analysis tools include TACT, Micro-OCP, and WordCruncher. See the Web page for hours and detailed holdings
University of New Brunswick Electronic Text Centre: The Electronic Text Centre is a multi-faceted electronic publishing enterprise. The Centre prepares and publishes electronic texts and images to standards, including SGML/XML encoded special collection texts and electronic journals. The Centre's imaging services include automated processes for capturing and archiving high-resolution digital images. As part of its mandate, the Centre lends technical and educational support to University of New Brunswick faculty, students, and to other institutions for the development of Web-based publishing projects.
University of Waterloo University of Waterloo Library Electronic Text Center: The focus of the initial collection is on machine-readable versions of primary texts in the isciplines of Classics, English, French, German, and Philosophy. Whenever possible access to these resources has been provided via the World Wide Web to facilitate remote distribution and ease of use in incorporating computer-based textual information into research, study and teaching.
University of Sydney Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS): SETIS was established in 1996 to support and encourage textual studies at the University of Sydney by the provision of primary source texts in electronic form, computers and associated software. A large collection of texts and text databases on CD-Rom are available for use at the library. Many of these are also networked to the campus using the Open Text 5.0 search engine. SETIS has scanning equipment, OCR software and text analysis programs such as TACT. IBM, Macintosh and X-terminals are available. In addition to networking SGML-encoded text databases to the web, SETIS has created a large number of texts, particularly Australian literary and historical texts, and these are freely available at the web site. These texts have been encoded according to the TEI guidelines. SETIS participates in a number of national projects such as the Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project; The Australian Literary Manuscripts EAD Project; and the Australian Digital Theses project.

Related to the Electronic Text Center concept is that of the "Digital Library", for which there are a number of projects in progress. These are generally of wider scope, as they include sound, image and other media in addition to text. For details of these, see the Digital Library Federation page at the Library of Congress site.