Sale ends 10 June.

Our current offer of 25% off all our titles if you buy 4 or more is coming to an end on 10 June. Take advantage of it while you can at http://www.tannerritchie.com/!

Manuscripts of the State Papers, Elizabeth, and State Papers, Spain, going online

(Detail from TNA SP70/6 f.4r. To be published in June as part of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO). Letter from Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, Paris, 1 August 1559, partly in cipher. Printed copy already available to subscribers at http://sources.tannerritchie.com/browser.php?ipid=31164)

In the next two weeks a major addition will be made to the manuscript content of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO):

Part 1 of 2: TNA SP/70 State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth I

Complete: TNA SP/94 State Papers, Spain (mostly not printed in Calendar of State Papers, Spain)

As the first publisher to take on the large scale publication of manuscripts from the UK National Archives, we are pleased to announce that our next major additions of manuscripts to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online will be made in the next few weeks, as part of the continuing rollout. At the same time an improved interface will be launched to enable better navigation of the manuscripts, while a large proportion of the images will be in high quality grayscale, rather than the monochrome which was favoured by the archives in the past. They will also be linked to the discussion forum, where we hope users will assist each other collaboratively with getting the most value out of the resource.

What do you want to be published? Tell us now.

In 2008/9 we will be adding new titles from existing series, but also beginning major new projects. Suggest your additions to our catalogue now (add comment here, or contact us).

Here are some highlights of the coming twelve months:

• Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1676-1691 (to finish complete series)
• Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1556-1728
• The Rolls Series: please tell us if you would like particular volumes. Featured in this years coverage will be Matthew Paris’ Chronica Majora, Roger Howden’s Chronica, the Tripartite Life of St Patrick, and Irish sources such as Historical Municipal Documents, Ireland.
• New Project: The Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports and Calendars. A major new project to digitise this enormous and complex collection of material relating to manuscript sources in the UK. We will be publishing large sections of this collection – however we would like to enlist our user’s assistance in suggesting volumes that should be included in the first wave. A complete list of the titles which have been published by HMC since the mid nineteenth century can be found at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/academic/pdf/bibliography.pdf

Nobody Does it Better

(Image of Henry de Bractons "Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae", by 'Wit', Creative Commons Licence)

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and we are interested to note that there are now some other companies and organisations that have digitised similar content areas to TannerRitchie Publishing in the field of medieval and early modern historical sources. Some have received generous public funding to repeat work done (more economically) by TannerRitchie Publishing. TannerRitchie Publishing does not receive any funding from the public sector.

Our competitors differ from us in three significant ways, however. Firstly – they are not interested in selling small amounts of content to individuals, only libraries. Secondly institutional subscription rates are kept closely guarded. Related content is often not sold as part of the same resource, in order that they can achieve multiple sales from a single institution for similar material.

TannerRitchie has a policy of price openness. Whether you are an individual or a university library, you can find out the cost of any purchases and subscriptions on our website. Anybody can buy titles from as little as $40.

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online is designed to contain a wide range of related content, and not to spin off content in an attempt to increase sales, or only to cover one range of material because of funding constaints. Our intention is that any researcher of British, colonial and European medieval and early modern history will use MEMSO as a first point of call for their research, and not be forced to consult in multiple areas.

MEMSO is constantly developed and improved, and new content areas are researched and included. We believe that this is not just ethically correct, but that treating our clients as we would like to be treated is good business practice.

Complete catalogue being added to NetLibrary

We're pleased to announce that the complete TannerRitchie catalogue is being added to NetLibrary as we speak. Most North American university libraries will already be familiar with what NetLibrary can do for them in terms of managing access to electronic content. We hope that libraries will consider NetLibrary when examining the many options available for using our content. NetLibrary is particularly suitable for institutions with smaller budgets, libraries that are not primarily academic in nature, or institutions that already make use of NetLibrary for accessing and managing eContent.

NetLibrary users should keep an eye our for our titles becoming available in the next few weeks.

For those unfamiliar with NetLibrary, it describes itself in the following way: "[NetLibrary] is fast growing to become the eContent provider of choice for academic, community college, public and many other libraries. It offers easy-to-use functionality with access to multiple formats and best-selling titles from the world's leading publishers.

"As OCLC's eContent division, NetLibrary represents a unique dual heritage: a trusted partner for librarians and publishers, with a firm commitment to technological innovation on behalf of end-users. NetLibrary combines the time-honored traditions of the library system with the latest in electronic publishing and content delivery."

If you have any questions about NetLibrary, or would like to discuss accessing our titles this way, please contact us.

New titles published today

These books have been made available on MEMSO or for purchase as downloads/CD-ROMs during the week of 28 April 2008: (see www.tannerritchie.com/newtitles.php for full details)

Calendar of State Papers, Venice, volume 20 (1626-1628)

Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, volume 23 (Adventurers for Land in Ireland, 1642-1659)

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III, 1360-1364

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III, 1364-1368

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III, 1369-1374

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III, 1374-1377

Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II, 1377-1381

Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II, 1389-1392

John Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, Edward VI, volume 2 parts 1 & 2

John Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, Mary I, volume 3 parts 1 & 2

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 2nd edition, volume 1 part 1 (1509-1513)

Coming Soon:

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 2nd edition, volume 1 parts 2 & 3

Thomas Duffus Hardy ed., Rotuli Chartarum, volume 1 part 1 (1199-1216), and Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, volume 1.1 (1201-1216)

Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II

Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I

And more from the Rolls Series including Memorials of Henry the Fifth King of England, Memorials of King Henry VII,Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis,Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis and Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes...

MEMSO 2.6 launched

Last week we launched the latest version of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online, or version 2.6.

Some new features:
'Live search' - This is a great feature for searching alternate spellings of words - especially place names and personal names, and also provides a way around the inevitable scanning errors that digital searching creates. Typing just the first few letters of a word will now bring up a list of suggestions that you might like to select, which changes dynamically as you type. See the example to the left, where a list of places in Scotland that begin with 'Auchter' are listed. Note how the list includes eight alternate spellings of the Scottish town Auchterarder in Perthshire.

Toolkit: We've integrated search boxes into MEMSO that will take you to the UK version of Google Maps, The Oxford English Dictionary(OED), dictionary.com and the Dictionary of the Scottish Language (DSL). Google maps provides a good starting point for locating placenames within MEMSO, although we'd rather be using the Ordnance Survey which is much better for historical research. At present, unfortunately, their website does not work well enough for us to integrate it even though they make all their maps available for online searching. The specialist language used in our historical sources is always going to make having a good dictionary at hand useful, and subscribers to OED have a fantastic version available. DSL is a similarly brilliant use of the web for a reference work, bringing together the research from the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the Scottish National Dictionary. It's well worth a look even if your research is not primarily in the realm of Scottish history, especially as their is overlap between Scots and the dialects of northern England.

We'll be adding new and more advanced tools for users in time, which we hope will integrate (or mashup) other sites' data with MEMSO's. Keep an eye out for tools for language experts, such as concordances and word frequency tools.

The first part of a user preferences system was launched. At present it only controls our tooltips, which help new users to get the most from the site. Over the next month or so we'll be adding a lot of new features here, enabling users to save 'favourite' books, and bookmark their place within a book.

Permalinks. We've added permalinks to every page now, so you can use the URL directly for citation purposes, or to save you place in your browser.

New login system. For users that use usernames and passwords to login, you'll notice that things just got prettier.

We've also made the placing of the main search more logical, in a drop down box, and likewise adjusted the 'search within this book' option.

There's always room for improvement, so all comments are very welcome.

Why the version numbers?

For those that wonder why we use version numbers, it's to highlight the fact that MEMSO is now in all senses a 'web application' rather than a 'web page', with incremental changes happening every month or two, as well as the weekly additions of new books. In other words, it helps to think of MEMSO more like a program such as Microsoft Word or Excel, where the program provides many advanced features for working with a particular type of data.

That creates some challenges for both us and the user. The danger we run is of overloading users with a complicated interface, and hiding the most heavily used features behind a deluge of useful but less popular material. We therefore always encourage as much feedback as possible about MEMSO, so we can make it work as well as possible. You can send feedback through out website at www.tannerritchie.com/contactus.php, or post a message here.