The Dynamics of Primary Source and Electronic Resource: The Digital Renaissance and the Post-Reformation Digital Library.

摘要

The transition from mechanical printing to electronic information dissemination amounts to a digital renaissance, enabling primary source documents to be reborn as electronic resources. For history scholars, this presents opportunities and challenges for preserving centuries-old original texts in a digital environment, supporting downloading and digital access and presenting original research. The Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) serves as a case study, capturing a select set of resources on theology and philosophy of the 15th to 18th centuries from a variety of physical locations and digital libraries. Through digitization, digital access and systematic cataloging, the PRDL -- along with the database, social networking and dedicated website it has prompted -- are helping to overcome barriers to access. Though a modest initiative, the progress of the PRDL demonstrates possibilities for rediscovering historical materials and making them available for modern scholarly studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]