More about its Niche: How Does this Differ from Other Digital Publishing Initiatives?
SourceLab's place in this rapidly evolving publishing world is defined by three distinctive characteristics.
First, we aren't a mass digitization initiative. Our focus isn't on bringing large amounts of new material into the Internet. Instead, we hope to make fascinating materials already on line ready for
Second, we build our editions with their use for making history in mind. Our goal isn't just to "get it out there," but to get it ready for historical analysis, by students, researchers, and members of the public. With this in mind not only do we provide scholarly commentary about the artifact and its evolution over time, but we also seek to put it into formats that make it easy to work with. Want a paper copy of the edition to print off, or an audio file you can put on your I Tunes? We've got you covered. In particular, our plan is that our first round of editions will emerge from proposals submitted by classroom instructors, who've found some gem they would really want to get into their students hands. Unlike mass digitization projects, then, our goal is to build from the demands of specific users.
Finally, and most importantly, SourceLab is distinguished by its ambition to draw students into the process of preparing Internet resources for teaching and research. We want to help them prepare the next generation of historical sources, for use by researchers, teachers, students and the general public alike. Our graduates will get course credit for their work, towards their degrees; author credit on the resulting publications, for their résumés; and invaluable experience in applying their writing, research, editorial, and communications skills to an important problem facing anyone interested in history today.