FYI...Stefanie ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- > > > 23 September 1996 > > PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Trustees of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New > York, recently awarded $400,000 to Brown University to help its Women > Writers Project evaluate the impact of introducing electronic versions of > rare texts on the costs of learning and scholarly behavior, as compared to > more traditional means of scholarship. > > The three-year award, announced June 20, 1996, supports an initiative > called Renaissance Women Online which compares the economics of online > delivery of a key group of important texts by women to the costs of > delivering them by traditional means. As part of the initiative, the Women > Writers Project (WWP) will add 55 important texts by Renaissance women in > English to its textbase of pre-Victorian women's writing, thus preparing > for electronic delivery a coherent set of approximately 100 texts by > Renaissance women. The costs of preparation and use will be measured as the > WWP prototypes electronic delivery over the Internet. The major goal of > Renaissance Women Online (RWO) is to evaluate the comparative economics of > electronic and traditional delivery, with the two scenarios to be analyzed > in detail and, where possible, compared quantitatively. > > Created in 1986 as a project and funded as an electronic archive in 1988, > the Women Writers Project pioneered the use of Standard Generalized Markup > Language (SGML) to create a versatile and long-lived scholarly resource. > The WWP textbase currently contains 45 texts by English women writers of > the Renaissance, as well as 155 other texts of pre-Victorian women writers. > A spectrum of genres is represented, including sermons, poems, novels, > plays and essays. The RWO initiative will concentrate on creating a group > of Renaissance works which will address the needs of teachers and scholars. > > > The WWP has long provided printouts of its texts; upon completion of the > RWO initiative, the WWP also will offer electronic delivery of the textbase > or access by universities, libraries and schools. Unlike stand-alone > printed books, the electronic textbase offers a whole range of texts from a > given period, in this case, the English Renaissance. Along with the ability > to read difficult-to-obtain texts, Renaissance Women Online will support > such advanced functions as discipline-specific retrieval, navigation, > viewing and analysis. > > Dr. Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, RWO's project director, said, "A major impulse > for the creation of the Women Writers Project was to make otherwise rare > texts available at low cost to teachers and scholars. The RWO initiative > will help us assess the actual costs of that enterprise, and compare it > with the costs of more traditional scholarship. What we learn will have > great significance for the scholarly and publishing world." As director of > the Women Writers Project, DeBoer-Langworthy coordinates the input from > over 60 Advisory and Research Board members around the world. > > Renaissance scholar Dr. Susanne Woods, a founder of the Women Writers > Project and chair of the Executive Committee of the WWP's Advisory Board, > said, "This exciting initiative fulfills the promise that the founding > board envisioned in putting these important texts into electronic form. > Even as WWP printouts and related projects have transformed the field of > early Modern cultural studies, fully functional electronic access will > change what we study and how we teach and learn in ways beyond current > imagining." A longtime professor of English at Brown, Woods is former dean > and now professor of English at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, > Pa. > > John Lavagnino, a scholar of Renaissance literature and textual criticism, > is the RWO's project coordinator and will oversee day-to-day organization > of the initiative and lead its prototyping of electronic delivery of these > texts over the Internet. Evaluation will include quantitative data analysis > and economic comparisons by Professor Walter Freiberger of Brown's Division > of Applied Mathematics and Elli Mylonas of Brown's Scholarly Technology > Group. > > * * * * END OF NEWS RELEASE * * * * * > > N.B. WWP staff members Syd Bauman, Paul Caton, Julia Flanders and Carole > Mah also work on RWO. In addition, Professor Elizabeth Hageman of the > University of New Hampshire heads up a three-member team of scholarly > consultants to help select appropriate texts by women writers of the > Renaissance for inclusion. Prof. Hageman is a member of the executive > committee of the WWP's Advisory Board. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > Carol DeBoer-Langworthy > Director, Women Writers Project > Brown University > Providence, RI 02912 USA > > > > ************************************ Stefanie S. Rixecker Department of Resource Management Lincoln University, Canterbury Aotearoa New Zealand E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************
