The brand-new scholarly website Cambridge Histories Online has been designed to reference and host the works from the Cambridge Histories series. Although the printed versions date back to 1902, the online content comes from the Histories published only from the 1960s onwards.
That content is broken down broadly into histories of the US and Britain, although there are also more general areas covering economics, politics, religion, music, literary studies and language. From there, users can explore by title, chapter or author, or conduct a more advanced search.
Touted as the e-publishing flagship of Cambridge University Press (CUP), Cambridge Histories Online represents a significant step forward for the institution’s e-learning strategy.
With such a pedigree of scholastic material at the site’s disposal, users will expect a decent delivery platform. The big question is whether CUP and developer Semantico have managed to master the technology trick.
They have. Using Cambridge Histories Online is a rewarding experience. It is a dependable and effortless way to ingest information.
There is no frenetic or frenzied info-grab here, no frustrating bugs or information dead-ends. Finding the relevant piece of text is easy and intuitive. The search system works well and the results are usually rewarding, even when you are browsing blind.
The sombre, deep colouring of the site also works well. Its avoidance of trendy neon hues makes the interface all the more relaxing for the eyes.
Browsing and reading online is a positive experience here. Modern-day scholars spend ever more time in front of a screen, so that is an important box to tick. Simple and well thought-out language is used throughout the resource and presented in a legible script. The site draws in users effortlessly, and as a result you will find yourself spending far longer with it than you might anticipate.
MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloguing) records and Counter (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) stats will be available to scholars for use on all 250 volumes of content. MARC record functionality will be ready by the end of May.
The CUP also says that new content for 2008, 11 volumes in total, will be added to the site as it is published. From now on, all new related material will be added to the resource.
I used Cambridge Histories Online regularly over a two-week period and experienced no bugs, error messages or failed page loads. Everything happened the way I expected it to, and it’s not often you can say that of an online resource, especially at its launch.
You can get at the material through a basic keyword search field or via the browse button; the latter gives superior results by linking through to a range of titles.
Choose the relevant one and you are taken to an overview page with a synopsis of the material and cataloguing details such as ISBN and digital object identifier numbers.
On the right-hand side of the page, another navigable set of links details each of the title’s chapters as well as where the volume sits in the Histories series. This viewable compartmentalisation of material will help you work far more efficiently.
Click through on the selected text and up comes a further series of links to essays and other parts of the chapter. It is at this point that you also get a very helpful option to access any reference point in the material.
There is also advice on how to cite correctly, along with accompanying links to other works that cite that particular entry. You can then either email the citation to yourself or download it as a text or CSV file.
Thereafter the main body of the text is available as a PDF file, with or without highlighting of keywords in the text.
One of the more important areas of the site is the My Histories section, which allows you to bookmark information of your choosing. A neat little option lets you create workgroups where other users can add comments and notes to the material.
What this means is that scholars at all levels can collaborate on sharing resources and ideas about the material, such as saved searches or browsed content, and even information from other subscription-based library catalogues.
The site shares the same Lucene search engine that users of Cambridge Online Journals may be familiar with. A basic text search will yield a number of related titles, although there is no indication of why these appear in the order they do, and a slight alteration in search word or name will alter this list. While search functionality is good enough to return adequate results, it probably won’t offer up any hidden gems. There is the option to conduct an advanced search, but success with this was equally limited.
If you need it, you can take the handy search walk-through, which outlines what is available and where, and illustrates its explanations through screenshots with pointers to features on the page. Like the site in general, the walk-through is a simple, no-frills solution that works well.
Cambridge Histories Online is a credit to the CUP, its development partner and the Cambridge Histories series itself. This offering is evidence that academic learning online has come of age.
