Electronic Book and Text Resources

Academic Archives
http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/etext.html

The Alex Library
A collection of public domain documents from American and English literature as well as Western Philosophy.
http://www.infomotions.com/alex/

Al Islam
Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project
http://www.al-islam.org/

Alternate Text Information
http://www.disabilityresources.org/ALTERNATIVE-FORMATS.html

American Memory Collections
An effort to digitize and deliver electronically the distinctive, historical Americana holdings at the Library of Congress, including photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, recorded sound and moving pictures. Currently, there are over 70 collections in the American Memory Historical Collections.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/

American Verse Project
An electronic archive of volumes of American Poetry. Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. From the Humanities Text Initiative of the University of Michigan.
http://www.hti.umich.edu/a/amverse/

Athena
Thousands of electronic texts, sorted by author’s name! Many texts in French. Some are edited ate Athena. Located in Switzerland.
http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/html/author_k.html

Avalon Project
Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy from pre-18th century documents to twentieth century documents.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/r/211/whm.html

Basic Readings in the US Democracy
Digitized excerpts of original documents from 1776 through 1990’s. http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/demo.htm

Bible Foundation: E-Text Library
Unless otherwise noted all the e-text listed are public domain. In the United States and have been proofread. They are ready as data for software development or for use with text editors and word processors. http://www.otgateway.com/bibles.htm

Bibliomania
Hundreds of searchable full text works of classic fiction, popular fiction, short stories, drama, poetry, dictionaries, research and religious texts.
http://www.bibliomania.com/

William Blake Archive
A contemporary response to the needs of readers and viewers and to the needs of the collections where Blake’s original works are currently held.
http://www.blakearchive.org/main.html

Blind Bookworm
http://www.panix.com/%7Ekestrell/sources.html

Book-A-Minute
Humorous lampooning of popular books via ultra condensation.
http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/

Books–On-Line
A searchable and browseable database-directory of online electronic texts covering a broad range of interests, from established literary classics to computer how-to manuals. Some have sample chapters with links to

Amazon.com
http://www.questia.com/index.jsp

California Digital Library
Collaborative effort of nine campuses of the University of California. Select “general public” in “available to” pull-down menu.
http://www.cdlib.org/

Carrie: Full-Text Electronic Library
An extensive resource, listing texts archived at various locations all across the internet. Also has a searchable database feature.
http://www.ku.edu/carrie/

CELT-Library of Irish Literature
The online resource for contemporary and historical Irish documents in literature, history and politics.
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/

Chinese Philosophical Etext Archive
Electronic versions of Chinese philosophical texts from other sources, to some of which have made minor improvements.
http://sangle.web.wesleyan.edu/etext/

Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Classic Christian books in electronic format, selected for your edification. There is enough good reading material here to last you a lifetime.
www.ccel.org

Civil War Women: Primary Sources
Links to manuscripts collections at Duke which have been scanned and transcribed as well as links to other Civil War women’s archival documents which are available in cyberspace.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/cwdocs.html/

Classic Literature Library
Online index of classical fiction and nonfiction, with links to search engine searches for author.
http://www.literature.org/

Cornell University Prototype Digital Library
Includes the Math Book Collection, Ezra Cornell Papers, NEH Agriculture Collection, etc.
http://www.joeant.com/DIR/info/get/627/6565

Corporate Annual Reports
Facsimiles of corporate annual reports from the Lippincott Library Collection. The reports are in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).
http://www.zpub.com/sf/arl/arl-www.html

Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse
Designed to offer easy access to another and interconnectivity between three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary, a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse, based on the MED bibliographies, and an associated network of electronic resources, including a large collection of Middle English texts.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/

Daoist Scriptures
A large collection of Chinese Taoist literature. Includes various translations of both philosophical Daoism and religious Daoism texts.
http://www.eng.taoism.org.hk/daoist-scriptures/pg3-intro.asp

Douglass:Archives of American Public Address
Electronic archive of American oratory and related documents. From Northwestern University.
http://douglassarchives.org/

Early Canadiana Online
A full text online collection of more than 3,000 books and pamphlets documenting Canadian history from the first European contact to the late 19th century. The Collection is particularly strong in literature, women’s history, native studies, travel and exploration, and the history of French Canada.
http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html

Electric Library
http://www.highbeam.com/library/index.asp

Electronic Library of the Bath House
Various texts associated with the Roman Emperor Elagabalus.
http://members.aol.com/heliogabby/private/hglib.htm

Electronic Texts & Documents
Amazing depth of historical subjects available from the University of Washington Library.
http://history.hanover.edu/etexts.html

Electronic Texts & Primary Sources (Digital Librarian)
A librarian’s choice of the best of the Web. Perhaps, the best index to book and text resources on the internet.
http://www.digital-librarian.com/electronic.html

E-Text Archives
Home to the electronic texts of all kinds. Our mission is to provide electronic versions of texts without judging their content
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
http://lib.virginia.edu/digital/collections/

EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents From Western Europe
Selected Transcriptions, Facsimiles and Translations.
http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page

Folklore and Mythology Texts
Electronic texts prepared by D.L. Ashliman, a retired professor of the University of Pittsburgh.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Over 10,000 digitized documents located at the library in New York.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/

Free Library of Classics
Provides free on-line books, etexts; over 200 of the world’s most famous novels, plays, short stories, poems and historical documents in their entirety for your reading pleasure and edification.
http://www.literature.org/authors/

From Revolution to Reconstruction
A hypertext on American History from the colonial period until Modern Times. Juxtaposes an outline of American history wit the texts of the original documents.
http://www.britac.ac.uk/portal/resource.asp?ResourceID=258

Gaslight’s List of Etexts
Chronological list of stories from the genres of mystery, adventure and The Weird, written between 1800 and 1919. From Mount Royal College in Canada.
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/chronos.htm

Great Books
Over 150 Authors and 700 Books. Fully Searchable Concordances.
http://books.mirror.org/gb.home.html

Gutenberg Digital
Presenting the digitized Gottingen Gutenberg Bible. You can also compare well-known passages from the Bible with different translations.
http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframes/

History of Economic Thought Archive
An attempt to gather all material for the study of the history of economics at one site. This includes both primary texts, studies of those texts and of their authors.
http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/

HTI
http://www.hti.umich.edu/

HyperTexts
Ongoing hypertext projects of the University of Virginia Library.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/hypertex.html

Internet Classics Archive
Includes over 100 translated texts of 17 different Greek and Latin authors in HTML format. The archive includes a search utility which can be directly accessed.
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/

Internet Poetry Archive
Selected poems from a number of contemporary poets
http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/

Internet Public Library Catalog
Contains over 13,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title or by Dewey Decimal Classification. Contains wonderful listings of works of Shakespeare.
http://winslo.state.oh.us/publib/libtable.html

Library of Southern Literature
Documents the riches and diversity of Southern experience as presented in one hundred of its most important literary works
http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/

H.P.Lovecraft
Links to a few of Lovecraft’s early writings
http://www.hplovecraft.com/

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/index.html

Luminarium
A starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Includes Medieval, Renaissance and early 17th Century literature.
http://www.luminarium.org/

Mad Cybrarian’s Library
Links to free on-line e-texts, in alphabetical order by author.
http://members.fortunecity.com/bibliophilia/

Marxist Internet Archive
The most complete database of Marxist hithero made. The archive is divided into three major sections: Marxist writers, Marxist History, and reference materials. The Marxist Writers archive holds the extensive databases of documents, photos, and biographies on a wide variety of Marxist from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to the Che Guevara to Vladamir Lenin to Rosa Luxemburg.
http://www.marxists.org/

National Academic Press
http://www.nap.edu/

National Library Of Canada Electronic Collection
Incorporates formally published Canadian books and journals.
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/index-e.html

Net Library
http://www.netlibrary.com/

Of the 19th Century
A digital collection of some 50 published works by 19th century black women writers. from the New York Public Library.
http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/toc.html

Oklahoma Baptist University
http://www2.okbu.edu/library/serials/current/jnlsIndex.html

The Online Books Page
More than 12,000 English works in various formats. The internet public library index has fewer full books, but more short texts, and non-English texts.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Online Literature Library
Classics at the Online Literature Library
http://www.literature.org/

Online Medieval and Classical Library
A collection of some of the most important literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/

Online Texts
http://www.ipl.org/reading/books/

Oxford Text Archive
Works closely with members of the Arts and Humanities academic community to collect, catalogue, and preserve high-quality electronic texts for research and teaching. The OTS currently distributes more than 2500 resources in over 25 different languages.
http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/

Perseus Project
An evolving digital library of resources for the study of ancient world and beyond.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

Project Bartleby
An internet publisher of literature and verse providing students, researchers and intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the Web, free of charge.
http://www.bartleby.com/

Project Gutenberg
Texts are taken from books published pre 1923. You will find here the classic books from the start of this century and previous centuries. OBU Library participates in this project
http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Project Runenberg
Free electronic editions of old books from Sweden and the Nordic countries.
http://runeberg.org/

Philosophy Text Collection
The classic philosophical texts contained here are available in HTML, text, and RTF formats.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/etexts.htm

Read ‘Em and Speak!
http://www.hicom.net/%7Eoedipus/books/index.html

Rocket e-book/Bowdoin
Books especially prepared to work on the popular portable reader.
http://library.bowdoin.edu/services/ebook.html

(SCETI)
Web access to virtual facsimiles of original texts, documents, and sources from the University of Pennsylvania’s collections.
http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/flash.cfm?CFID=2462324&CFTOKEN=19076935

Scientific American
http://www.history.rochester.edu/Scientific_American/

Southwestern Classics Online
Digitized classic books about Texas and the Southwestern United States
http://www.oldcardboard.com/lsj/olbooks/olb_home.htm

SparkNotes
Summaries of history and various works of literature.
http://www.sparknotes.com/

Sunsit Digital Collections
Extensive digital collections and services while providing information and support to digital library developers worldwide. Sponsored by UV Berkeley Library and Sun Microsystems, Inc.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/

Texts by or to Thomas Jefferson
Special collection of more than 1,700 items, including some color manuscripts images from the Electronic Text Center (UVA)
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/

U Calgary
http://www.ucalgary.ca/%7Edkbrown%20

Victorian Women Writers Project
Highly accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century. From Indiana University Library.
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/

Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive
A hypermedia environment for studying works of the 19th century American poet Walt Whitman.
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
 

Brief Descriptive List of Accessible Technology Found in Higher Education

Higher Education Institutions will have differing ways to address accessible technology to meet the increasing needs for equal access to instruction. Below is a list of some of the types that may be available in Higher Education.

Screen Reader
This allows blind computer user access to the information on the screen. These products are very sophisticated in there ability to communicate various and different aspects of screen information. They use a synthetic voice to speak screen information to the user.
Examples are:
Jaws for Windows - http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/JAWS_HQ.asp
WindowEyes - http://www.gwmicro.com/products/
Mac/Apple VoiceOver - http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/voiceover/
note: reports to various lists from end users indicate that this is promising technology, but needs further development

Braille Displays
Braille displays take information from the screen reader and translate it into Braille. These are mechanical devices that are “refreshable.” They come in various widths, usually 20 or 40 Braille cells. Some Braille users might prefer this over synthetic speech and a user with a combination of blindness and hearing issues might require it.
Example is:
FreedomScientific - http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/displays.asp

Screen Enlarger
Computer users who have low-vision issues need a screen enlarger to enlarge the entire screen. The full screen exceeds the boundaries of the monitor and the monitor, in effect, becomes an enlarged portion of the “screen.” Screen enlargers also allow for adjusting screen colors, contrast, focus tracking, and masking.
Example is:
Magic – http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_magic.asp

Speech Recognition
Computing by voice dictation is more familiar to mainstream computer users because of the appeal of the basic idea. For some, it is a successful keyboard alternative, but for people with severe mobility limitations, it may be the only way that they can use the computer.

Examples are:
Dragon NaturallySpeaking - http://www.scansoft.com/naturallyspeaking/
IBM Via Voice – (same manufacturer and NaturallySpeaking) http://www.scansoft.com/viavoice/
Mac/Apple - http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/speech/

Other Technologies
There are a multitude of alternative keyboards, mice, foot pedals, monitors, speakers, adjustable tables etc. available to accommodate different needs or combinations of disabilities.

What about computer users who are deaf or hard of hearing (HOH)?
Computers will sometimes emit a beep to alert the user to some event. In some cases the sound played attempts to indicate the type of event, but the objective always is to get the attention of the user. Most operating systems have a setting to “flash” the screen when an alert beep is sounded. The flash is seen by the user who is deaf or HOH. The web delivers more detailed sound (dialogue etc.), but it is the obligation of the content provider to furnish an alternative (usually some form of captioning) that will render in a conventional browser.

Technological Support for Cognitive Disabilities
Much of the AT designed for a physical disability has evolved into the area of cognitive support. Screen readers have been recast to help people with reading related learning disabilities. Speech recognition combined with other software techniques helps students with cognitive issues around written expression.

Reading Support
These programs allow for scanning of printed text and that text is then read to the user via a synthetic voice. Generally these applications highlight the spoken word, have integrated dictionaries, and allow for imbedded written or spoken notes.
Some examples are:
Kurzweil 3000 - http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/displays.asp
Mac version http://www.kurzweiledu.com/products_k3000mac.asp
WYNN - http://www.freedomscientific.com/LSG/products/wynn.asp

Writing Support
Students with expressive writing issues are helped by programs that utilize speech recognition, word prediction, and reading back of completed sentences. (Note: the writing support technologies mentioned above, have some support for writing built in.)
Example is:
texthelp – (lists both Win and Mac) http://www.texthelp.com/products.asp?q1=products

Assistive Software Suite

This is a suite of products for low vision, Learning Disabled, ADHD, mobility impaired, and ESL individuals. The suite includes programs such as: Scan and Read Pro, Universal Reader Plus, E-Text Reader, Ultimate Talking Dictionary, Talking Word Processor, PDF Magic, Text to Audio, and Talking Calculator.
This product is also available as a Key to Access device which allows you to take your assistive technology with you as a portable USB MP3 Player.
http://www.readingmadeeasy.com

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D)

RFB&D has been an invaluable educational resource, enabling those with print disabilities to complete their educations, advance their careers, and gain self-esteem. RFB&D's materials are for all people who cannot effectively read standard print because of a visual, perceptual or other physical disability. More than 70 percent of those served by RFB&D last year were identified as having a learning disability.

RFB&D records educational and reference materials that are not available on tape or disc from other sources, in areas such as history, math, science and economics. Among many special collections of note in RFB&D's library are those in science, medicine, environmental issues, law, women's studies, Jewish studies, literature and fiction. RFB&D records audiobooks in specialized formats, such as the four-track cassettes or the password-protected digitally recorded books on CD, to comply with US copyright law.

Both individual and institutional annual memberships are available. If a student is currently a member, notify the disability service provider at their chosen university and bring any RFB&D equipment with them to campus.

http://www.rfbd.org