The Alex Catalogue, A Collection of Digital Texts with Automatic Methods for Acquisition and Cataloging, User-Defined Typography, Cross-searching of Indexed Content, and a Sense of Community

Abstract

This paper describes the Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts, the only Internet-accessible collection of digital documents allowing the user to 1) dynamically create customized, typographically readable documents on demand, 2) search the content of one or more documents from the collection simultaneously, 3) create sets of documents from the collection for review and annotation, and 4) publish these sets of annotated documents in turn fostering a sense of community around the Catalogue. More than a just a collection of links that will break over time, Alex is an archive of electronic texts providing unprecedented access to its content and features allowing it to meet the needs of a wide variety of users and settings. Furthermore, the process of maintaining the Catalogue is streamlined with tools for automatic acquisition and cataloging making it possible to sustain the service with a minimum of personnel.