eTexts Project: "A Commonwealth of Learning"

The Early Modern Texts VRE is a pilot for "A Commonwealth of Learning" portal for early English texts (thus recreating in modern virtual form the early modern idea of a republic of scholars working collaboratively via letters and the exchange of texts). We envisage an EEBO and ECCO related resource consisting of:

• an archive of edited or annotated copies of titles, from a multiplicity of scholars;
• a wiki for the construction of a collaborative and continually expanding e-cyclopedia of comments, information, notes, bibliographies, links, and other material relating to any of the titles, authors or themes;
• an on-line discussion page arranged by topic, author and title;
• virtual workspaces for scholars to research privately but also to share work and ideas;
• listings of scholars working across disciplines on early modern texts and the facilitation of collaborative work between them (including PhD students).

It is intended that this portal should be genuinely interdisciplinary and create a resource that simply could not be achieved by conventional research methods or paper publication. It will thus add real, and innovative, value to currently existing e-resources.

Please contact us for further information, to suggest initiatives or if you would like access to the pilot Early Modern Texts Forum.