Trial of the Electronic Enlightenment

The Library is currently offering trial access to OUP’s newest online resource, the Electronic Enlightenment. You can find this listed in the Library Catalogue or under ‘Use e-resources’ in the listing under ‘Trial e-resources’. The trial lasts until 3 December 2008.

OUP describes the EE as “The online gateway to the long 18th century”, offering unrivalled access to the web of correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the long 18th century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers.

It includes the full critical editions of the letters of more than 3,800 writers including Addison, Bentham, Boswell, Defoe, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Locke, Pope, Rousseau, Smith, Swift, Sterne and Voltaire but in total covers nearly 6,000 correspondents and over 80,000 document sources, both manuscript and printed.

We should need to give very careful thought to the (recurrent) cost implications in considering a subscription to a resource of this kind. Your comments on the EE’s potential usefulness, especially in relation to your own teaching and/or research, would be very much appreciated. You can send them directly to me (a.c.farr@leeds.ac.uk) or use the online feedback form for e-resource trials.