Re: ACLS Humanities e-books

[Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde@yahoo.com>]

> . . . the ACLS project is alive and well
> (http://www.humanitiesebook.org/) and sustaining itself . . .

Anda good thing it's doing that at least. But as a well-rounded
resource, so to speak, it perhapsleaves at leastlinguistically/
culturally something to be desired -- seeing as how it's
enormously over-Anglophone. (Yes, I can see and sympathize with
the circumstances dictating such a situation, and don't want to
appear niggling or ungrateful, but that *is* a factor that
shouldn't be left entirely out of mind, it seems to me.)

Even when one looks at thesubjectslike the
literatures,languages, histories and culturesof western
Europe;at medieval and renaissance studies; ancient studies;the
artsetc., one finds almost nowhere any other language of
publication. While perhaps sixty to seventy percent of the still
currently important works in such fieldsare not written in
English. Not what you wouldwant to call thehumanities at its
best, perhaps. I see only a precious few e.g. French- and
Italian-language books.

Couldn't one for instanceat least seek to coordinate in a more
visible, and efficient,waywith relevantbodies in other
language areas -- where comparable projects do exist ? That could
be quite interesting. Is something like that in the works ?

- Laval Hunsucker
 Breukelen, Nederland

________________________________
From: James J. O'Donnell <provost@georgetown.edu>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Sat, January 16, 2010 3:23:57 AM
Subject: ACLS Humanities e-books

Sandy Thatcher instances e-Gutenberg and the ACLS Humanities
e-books project as examples of "reckless enthusiasm" that live on
in "attenuated form".Others should speak to e-Gutenberg, which I
believe has completed its run but keeps its books available, but
the ACLS project is alive and well
(http://www.humanitiesebook.org/) and sustaining itself and well
spoken of by scholars in a variety of humanities fields.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown University