The Steering Committee would li...

The Steering Committee would like your input into directions this organization should take. An excellent discussion of how 18thConnect might negotiate with Gale-Cengage about ECCO appears on the Early Modern Online Bibliography.

First of all, many congratulati...

First of all, many congratulations to Laura and all others involved in creating 18thConnect. It is a handsomely designed site, and I am hopeful that it will become a crucial resource hub and source of exchange for 18th-century scholars.

Two ideas for developing 18thConnect are 1) providing a section on "Using Electronic Resources Effectively" and 2) creating a "notes" section for the peer-reviewed digital objects. The "Using Electronic Resources Effectively" section could cover such topics as best search practices, what databases work well in tandem with one another, and the like. Such a forum would differ from reviews of digital resources by offering more extensive nuts and bolts instruction and advice. At present, there is a tab for "Discussion" next to each digital object, a welcomed feature that should be useful for both scholarship and the classroom. Yet, I wonder if another tab devoted to "Notes" could be introduced. Topics entered here might concern additional information about the imprint--details about the bookseller or printer or location of publication, for instance--or it might offer information about readers gleaned from diaries, reviews, marginalia, and so forth, or, if obscure, the author. I realize that including a tab for such information raises issues of reliability. Yet, if the poster was identified and the information was labeled as "unverified" or "unapproved," users would be alerted to the fact that the information has not (yet?) been approved by 18thConnect. Some of the notes information could form the basis for discussion under that tab, perhaps leading to approval or confirmation of the notes information.

Eleanor Shevlin

18thConnect Discussion: Contribute Ideas

The Steering Committee would li...

First of all, many congratulati...