SETIS: Sydney Electronic Text and Image Service

One of the major problems for students, researchers and general readers of classic Australian literature is the unavailability of texts in print form. Of course, an enthusiastic reader could probably find copies of many of these books in second-hand and antiquarian bookshops, or borrow them from their local council or university library, but such opportunities are limited and the condition of ancient or well-worn books do not make suitable reading copies. In an attempt to make important works of Australian literature more accessible and to help preserve the material copies that are still available, the Sydney Electronic Text and Images Service (SETIS) has supported a large-scale digitization project that is a magnificent resource for present and future readers and researchers.

Among the many texts that have been digitized at SETIS, more than one hundred are sponsored by AustLit, selected on the basis of academic surveys and advice. Ranging from the early nineteenth century to the 1930s, the AustLit Primary Source Texts form a core group of texts that have significantly contributed to Australia's literary history. The first books of many well-known writers are included, but neglected writers such as Chester Cobb are also represented in the list. Important nineteenth century women writers such as Ada Cambridge, Rosa Praed, 'Tasma' and Catherine Martin are included and the series of Bulletin anthologies edited by A. G. Stephens provide a glimpse of the literary content of that famous weekly newspaper. Primarily using first editions as a source for transcription and delivering text to readers in PDF format, SETIS draws readers as close as possible to the original publication without providing a digitized image of each page.

SETIS enables searching within and across the texts it hosts, but Aus-e-Lit plans to provide a richer searching infrastructure for the AustLit Primary Source Texts, linking their data to that held within AustLit and other target databases. In the next three months testing will begin on the first phase of federated searching and a demonstration version will be available for feedback by July 2009, just in time for the annual ASAL conference.