From Publishing Perspectives:
This week, the Oxford University Press has announced a new digital resource, bringing together its flagship “Oxford World’s Classics” collection in a single dedicated digital format.
Institutional users will have access to 300 works, “ranging from 18th-century dramas and essays to core Victorian novels, complete with up-to-date supplementary materials,” according to media messaging.
The new online version of the series “is designed with users in mind,” per information from the publisher. The new site’s searching and browsing functionality is said to be easy to “allow researchers, lecturers, and students to pinpoint the material they need.
“Integrated sharing and social media tools also make it easy for readers to distribute precise content with colleagues and students, facilitating seminar discussions and essay ideas.”
. . . .
“In the last year, we’ve really seen the importance of reliable digital products as universities and libraries have come under extraordinary strain.
“Digital products like our online ‘Oxford World’s Classics’ enable research and teaching to continue in these unparalleled times but will also help to permanently expand access, giving users the chance to explore beyond just what’s available in the nearest library.
“It’s great to think that the next generation of humanities students will be able to access reliable, consistent, rigorously prepared editions of key texts, thanks to the technological progress of the 21st century.”
. . . .
Researchers will find translations from the 18th and 19th century—from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Émile Zola’s Germinal, and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative.
Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives
I’d have been a lot more impressed if they’d issued them as free downloadable ebooks available to everyone.
However “Oxford World’s Classics is available via subscription and Perpetual Access by institutions. Prices are based on the size and type of institution…” so to get the additional matter which goes with the public domain text you need some kind of institutional affiliation. As I already have any of the books – if not the modern commentaries- for free from Amazon Classics or Project Gutenberg I think I can pass.
To be fair, the offer is aimed at educational organisations rather than any old reader, but why not help out everyone who wants to learn (though it would not then generate any cash return for the Press)?
You mean we actually have to read the classics for ourselves with no assistance? (/ sarcasm, which should be understood, but often isn’t)
Yes, it’s a terrible idea that we might do this without this support.
Though the notes at the end of my 54 year old paperback of Pride and Prejudice are not without interest. I learnt that by the time S&S had sold out Jane Austen had made £250 and was longing for more, and hoping she’d get it from her current WIP (supposedly Mansfield Park). Not that this actually threw any light on the book itself, but it was fun to think that she’d earned enough to pay a lady’s maid for 12+ years.