A Wish-List of Web Resources for Humanities Scholarship

The advent of scholarly resources on the Web already allows more people to research a greater number of topics in more depth than ever before. Increased access will bring about sophisticated understanding and questions from people previously excluded from the dialogues of professional scholarship. Because of the larger audience for scholarship, the Web will likely foster the skeptical evaluation of scholars' claims, the articulation of new questions, and a growing need for clarification through research. Thus, the playing field for academic scholarship will be leveled somewhat, but more generally raised. Experts will be called upon even more for their specialized knowledge and interpretive skills. In this environment, what sorts of online tools will humanists, including museum curators and art historians, need? For the groundwork of research, the utility of a digital library like the Perseus Project is obvious. Computers simplify tedious tasks, such as compiling indices; resolve disparities, like variant names or spellings; and connect resources, including objects in different museums. A review of Perseus resources which facilitate scholarship also shows its current boundaries as a scholarly tool, however. By examining these limitations, we might generate a wish-list of Web resources which will provide scholars with the means for advanced research by allowing them to exploit the advantages of networked information.