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Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
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At Readex, we looked forward to the Digital Early American Imprints, Series I review in the influential Journal of American History (JAH, Sept., 2005). Perhaps because so many leading scholars have called this new collection revolutionary and democratizing, we are especially disappointed by Professor Richard Rath's narrow perspective, described by Rath himself as "cranky," on this resource now in use worldwide at 295 institutions of every type and size. |
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Rath states, "The OCR engine provides the main feature of the collection ... " but never notes the deep indexing that most distinguishes Early American Imprints from comparable databases. By enabling users to search and browse more than 37,000 works by author, title, subject, genre, and other fields, this collection offers unprecedented access to this material. For example, researchers browsing "Society, Manners, and Customs" are presented with more than 300 subtopics. |
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Rath suggests "others" have accused Readex of participating in a "twenty-first-century theft of the commons." This unfortunate charge ignores the reality that every imprint in the Evans bibliography is no less freely available today than before Readex created images from these works—first on microprint and now digitally. Most scholars hail Readex for dramatically expanding access to these imprints, originally filmed from the holdings of more than 250 institutions and private collections. Researchers no longer need to go to the imprints, because Readex has brought the imprints to the researchers—around the clock via the Web. |
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Rath writes, "The collection is expensive ... " when, in fact, prices for Early American Imprints have made the collection broadly obtainable, whether through acquisition, subscription, or other flexible options. While many institutions whose libraries are members of the Association of Research Libraries are customers, they account for only a quarter of the nearly 300 diverse institutions, including dozens of small colleges—many with fewer than 1,500 students—now enjoying access. |
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Rath states that his own "publicly funded state research university in the middle of the Pacific Ocean" has "only two faculty members working on anything related to early America." This surprisingly restrictive view, limiting the importance of 160 years of American printed works to faculty in one department, fails to recognize this collection's multidisciplinary value not only to teachers, but also to students throughout his university's departments of American Studies, Economics, Ethnic Studies, Geography, Journalism, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Women's Studies, and others. |
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Rath incorrectly states "the promised ... feature of making the underlying text available in ascii form is missing." No commercial publisher of comparable digital collections, including Readex, has promised, let alone provided, the underlying OCR output. The limitations of OCR-generated text are well known. For this reason, the University of Michigan has undertaken a series of "Text Creation Partnerships" with other academic institutions to key the text of works from digital collections, including Early American Imprints. |
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In concluding that "... it would be revolutionary if made more accessible ...," Rath unfortunately fails to discover why hundreds of institutions—from high schools to large universities—have already brought this essential collection to their researchers. |
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| David Braden
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President, Readex
A Division of NewsBank |
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