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The Sunday Times, London http://www.timesonline.co.uk
June 01, 2003
Brilliant! www.questia.com www.questia.com "A library is thought in cold storage," Lord Samuel once said, and now, when we need to be thinking harder than ever, online libraries rank among the web's most treasured resources. Many online libraries are specialist; others, such as Project Gutenberg, require lengthy downloads. Questia is in another league altogether. Maintained in Texas, its shelves boast more than 400,000 books and journals. The odd page is free to view, but for a fee (£27 quarterly, £73 annually), the library's vast potential opens up. Say you wish to peruse the OUP edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. You can bookmark specific passages, highlight text, make notes in the margin, look up words in the dictionary and create a bibliography. Try doing all that in the Bodleian. It is a boon for research, but there is nothing to stop you from just reading Madame Bovary. The collection is biased towards the humanities and social sciences, but takes in topics ranging from Middle Eastern history to marketing. Few volumes would appear in your local library, making the annual fee highly competitive. If knowledge is precious, Questia is priceless.
The Sunday Times, London http://www.timesonline.co.uk |