Oxford University Press's digital innovation continues with the launch of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online and the relaunch of Oxford Handbooks Online and Oxford Reference

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Sep 07, 2012, 10:40 ET

NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Oxford University Press is continuing to expand their innovative digital publishing program this September with the launch of the new, ground breaking resource Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) and the re-launch of the prestigious Oxford Handbooks Online and Oxford Reference. Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) is an important new initiative that will bring the famous and world-renowned collection of Oxford scholarly editions online for the first time. Launching with 171 editions of works written by authors principally active between 1485 and 1660, OSEO will publish the original texts of approximately 12,000 works, which include 200 plays, some 7000 poems, and over 5000 letters. OSEO will provide trustworthy and reliable critical editions of original works by some of the most important writers in the humanities, such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, as well as works from lesser-known writers such as Shackerley Marmion.

Sophie Goldsworthy, Editorial Director for Academic and Trade, and Project Director of OSEO comments: "With such a sheer volume of texts available online, it has never been more important than it is now to help scholars and students navigate to trusted primary sources on which they can rely for their research, teaching, and learning. Over the past century and more, Oxford has invested in the development of an unrivaled program of scholarly editions across the humanities. OSEO now takes these core, authoritative texts down from the library shelf, unlocks their features to make them fully accessible to all kinds of users, and makes them discoverable online."

The electronic environment of OSEO provides a new research method and tool for the reader, who can quickly examine the history of the scholarly editing of a work or see instantly how a particular word used in a text has changed over time. Students and scholars can interrogate texts in ways that could never have been done before, with a simple click of a mouse.

Nigel Portwood, Chief Executive of OUP, comments that "The release of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online is another step in support of our ambition to publish unrivaled scholarly editions that provide breadth, reliability and quality for researchers and students. Scholarly editing sits at the heart of OUP's academic publishing program and I am confident that the launch of this service will have a positive impact on research and scholarship in the humanities."

The launch of OSEO also coincides with the relaunch of one of OUP's leading resources, Oxford Handbooks Online: Scholarly Research Reviews. The new site has been reengineered in response to usage data and market research so that it is better aligned with how scholars and students access and use this kind of resource. The site has a more sophisticated functionality that makes it easier to search, browse, and download individual essays, and important modifications have been made to the underlying publication model that make it possible to publish individual chapters online in advance of print, provide updated versions of existing articles, and to publishing online-only articles on emerging areas of research. Oxford has appointed an Editor in Chief and Editorial Board of subject experts in each discipline to provide guidance and ensure quality. The coverage in Oxford Handbooks Online has been significantly expanded, increasing from four disciplines to fourteen to include Psychology, History, and other major fields of research.

Oxford Reference has also been redeveloped as the new home of Oxford's quality reference publishing. Bringing together over 1.7 million entries, OUP have seamlessly integrated the superb reference content from Oxford Reference Online and the Oxford Digital Reference Shelf onto the new Oxford Reference platform, enabling users to easily access and cross-search Oxford's prestigious reference works at the click of a button. The new Oxford Reference platform is made up of two collections. The Oxford Quick Reference collection contains over 125 core academic dictionaries allowing users to quickly check facts and key information about a concept, person, term, subjects, or language. The Oxford Reference Library contains over 180 in-depth and specialist titles from Oxford's award-winning collection of Encyclopedias and Companions. Oxford Reference allows users to build their own online reference library collection and is the perfect starting place for research at any level. At the click of a button it is possible to cross-search concise definitions through to in-depth articles on topics from Art to Zoology or Aristotle to Zeus.

"The release of these major digital publishing initiatives reflect the Press's mission and ongoing commitment to support excellence in research, scholarship, and education across the world," remarks Damon Zucca, Publisher for Scholarly and Online Reference. "I am confident that the release of these products will have a positive impact on the state of academic research and scholarship across all fields of study."

Each site launched by OUP will have an intuitive design based on Oxford University Press's extensive research into the ways reader's access and use the materials on each site. Part of the OUP mission in developing these sites alongside user feedback is to ensure that users find content easily and quickly. Oxford have therefore launched the Oxford Index, a free discovery service that lets users search across Oxford's digital academic content and find related content across all of their online sites.