Information Research Weblog

The extent to which reference materials are increasingly available on the Web is fascinating. I recently came across the site for the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, generally held to be the most scholarly of the editions and full of fascinating articles. The site has been put together with volunary labour and still has a few glitches, but it is an excellent resource.

My attention was drawn to another interesting site by The Scout Report, which I imagine most people on this list already know about. The site is the Internet Sacred Text Archive, which has the full text of practically everything you've ever heard of, and more besides, along with, in some cases, scholarly commentaries. For example, the section on Islam includes, of course, the Koran, but also Sufi texts and Palmer's "The meaning of the Koran". All of it out of copyright, of course.

Out of copyright texts were also the subject of a Guardian Online article on Thursday, "Drive to put in a good word" is about Brewster Kahle and his 'Bookmobile' - not the usual kind of travelling library!