Benefits of becoming a Friend of the ISE
When you support the ISE by becoming a Friend you are supporting a resource your patrons, and hundreds of thousands of visitors around the world use every day for teaching, research, information about performance, and their own enjoyment of a playwright many regard as the finest in English Literature. Our mission, like university libraries, is to continue to provide access to the most current scholarship and extensive resources that support scholarship and education.
Institutions that become Friends of the ISE will be able to provide their patrons with additional features and benefits:
- 1. A "print-ready" view of each page.
- Visitors accessing the site from the domain of a Friend of the ISE will see on each page an icon that will generate a version of the page formatted for printing, without unnecessary navigational signs and graphics. The page can also, of course, be copied and pasted into a student's own word processor.
- 2. A formatted citation for each page.
- A pop-up window, accessed from a link on each page will provide an accurate citation of the page for use in student essays. The citation will appear in both MLA and standard British formats.
- 3. Acknowledgement of the contributing library.
- Friends of the ISE will be acknowledged in two ways: when accessed from the home institution, each page of the site will flag it as a contributing member; and there will also be a special page dedicated to a list of all those institutions that are Friends of the ISE.
- 4. Assured continuity of content.
- The ISE is designed for long-term sustainability, with all its code open source, permanent URLs, and all its text formats readily converted as standards evolve. However, should the site for any reason cease to be available by open access, Friends of the ISE will have the right to mount on their own servers all content to which the ISE has rights.
- 5. Updates on progress on the site.
- Contributing libraries will receive a newletter every six months summarizing technical improvements and additional content published on the site.
Contributing libraries will also be enhancing the accessibility of scholarly materials to a wider audience, and for authors other than Shakespeare.
- 6. Global outreach.
- Students from smaller institutions and from non-English-speaking countries will have access to high quality materials otherwise unavailable.
- 7. Early Modern drama other than Shakespeare.
- The ISE is providing the platform for two sibling organizations to publish Early Modern drama: The Queen's Men Project (University of McMaster), and Digital Renaissance Editions (University of Western Australia). We are "incubating" these projects, making our software and services available for no charge.
Friends of the ISE will receive regular issues of our Newsletter, highlighting new publications on the site, tips on how your patrons can use the website, and introducing new features as we develop them (see the page on our vision for the future for some examples).
Please become a Friend of the ISE by filling in the form on our Membership page.