A Most Un - Digital Man : Charles Evans and the Evans Digital Edition

he current world of collection development is complex, confusing, irritating and at the same time, exciting. The increasing cost of periodicals in light of stagnant budgets, the interplay between print and non-print, and the question of access vs. ownership, are all interesting dilemmas that libraries must confront. With all of the challenging collection issues facing librarians, it is doubly exciting to focus our attention on electronic resources of a different nature from electronic journals or periodical indexes, full text resources such as Early English Books Online, Evans Digital Edition, and Original Sources. Early English Books Online (EEBO) is a digital version of Early English Books I, 1475-1640 (Pollard and Redgrave, Short-Title Catalogue I), Early English Books II, 1641-1700 (Wing, Short-Title Catalogue II), Early English Books Tract Supplement, 16th and 17th centuries, and the Thomason Tracts, 1640-1661. These materials were originally filmed by UMI (University Microfilms) starting in 1938 and made available on 5,295 microfilm reels. For a small liberal arts college, providing the resources and space for purchasing, storing, processing, maintaining, and providing access to such a collection was difficult. Convincing undergraduate researchers to use such documents on microfilm was another stumbling block. EEBO allows us to offer easy, convenient access to documents not usually made available to students and faculty at liberal arts colleges without requiring us to buy multiple microfilm cabinets. When digitization is complete, EEBO will include over 125,000 titles and will be of particular interest to students and faculty in history, the history of science, politics, philosophy, religion, arts, music, and English. It offers access to literary treasures such as the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays and the earliest edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It contains books by Boyle, Newton and Galileo. It includes almanacs, broadsides, calendars, pamphlets, sermons, ballads, carols, auction catalogs, letters, proclamations, and much more. The Thomason Tracts contains about 80 percent of what was published during an important and tumultuous time in British history, 1640-1661, and includes political speeches, religious tracts, court gossip, serVOLUME 11, NUMBER 1 FALL 2003