Scholars and the Marketplace: Creating Online Shakespeare Collections

Abstract

This article traces a history, often personal, of attempts to produce commercial CD-ROM and online Shakespeare materials, ranging from abortive discussions in the early days of CD-ROMs through the ambition and errors of the Arden On-line project to the success of Gale's Shakespeare Collection.

Keywords:

• electronic resources
• Arden Shakespeare
• online resources
• web Shakespeare
• Shakespeare Collection
• Gale
• Cengage Learning
• Shakespearean Criticism

Notes

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1. See <www.rsc.org.uk/searcharchives/home/index.jsp>.

2. See <www.ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/collections/designing-shakespeare.htm>.

3. See <http://ise.uvic.ca/index.html>.

4. See <http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html>.

5. The project benefited from the expertise of a distinguished advisory board, headed by Peter Holland at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (USA) and comprised of Michael Best, University of Victoria (Canada); David Bevington, University of Chicago (USA); Charles Edelman, Edith Cowan University (Australia); Barbara Hodgdon, University of Michigan (USA); Andreas Höfele, University of Munich (Germany); Jean Howard, Columbia University (USA); Russell Jackson, University of Birmingham (UK); Tetsuo Kishi, Kyoto University (Japan); Steven Mullaney, University of Michigan (USA); Michael Neill, University of Auckland (New Zealand); and Carol Chillington Rutter, University of Warwick (UK). Valuable input also came from the General Editors of the Arden Shakespeare, Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan, as well as Arden Publisher Margaret Bartley.

6. The British Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, Harvard Theatre Collection, Birmingham Public Library and Royal Shakespeare Company.