Chadwyck-Healey Ltd. in association with the British Library have published a microfiche archive of Nineteenth Century Books on Ireland consisting of some 300 monographs. This extraordinary departure is the outcome of a collaboration between between Professor Robin Alston, creator of the History of the Book MA in University College, London (Editorial Director) and Professor Cormac Ó Grada, the distinguished economic history from University College, Dublin (Editorial Advisor). Exciting as this development might be for historians, it is the prospect of compiling an equivalent tranche of Nineteenth-Century Irish Fiction that renders this an inspiring departure for IASIL members.
For the computerised the immediate question raise is surely, can't we have this on CD ROM, please, sir? Indications from tentative contact already made between CH and IASIL are that such initiatives are heavily grants-funded but not outside the scope of a concerted multi-library scanning project once a suitable sponsor has been found.
Subjects covered in the current collection include The Union; Home-Rule; Sectarian movements; Catholic Emancipation; Land reform; Famine; Regeneration of industry and agriculture; Emigration, and Ethnology by authors such as Philip Henry Dudley Bagnel, Albert Von Dicey, James Edward Fitzgerald, Anthony Marmion, and Daniel O'Connell. This make the work a treasure-trove for those gnawing on the old chestnuts of revisionist history, viz, were the Irish landlords such a bad lot after all? But how much more valuable if it were electronically published and therefore electronically searchable.
A pre-publication price of £2,700 (before VAT) was offered for orders placed by September 1997. Enquiries to Chadwyck-Healey Ltd, The Quorum, Barnwell Road, Cambridge, CB5 8SW UK; tel. 44 (0)1223 215512; e-mail: <marketing@chadwyck.co.uk>.