Holly A. Rine

hrine@gmu.edu

The Early Encounters in North America database is one of about 80 collections offered by Alexander Street: a ProQuest Company. This particular collection focuses on personal accounts of a variety of people who lived and travelled in North America from 1534 to 1850. Sources include both published and unpublished “narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.” Although it appears that the majority of the materials are, in fact, published, with 127 listed and browsable publishers.

Other categories users can browse include titles, people, subjects, historical events, places, and content type. For content type, most of the offerings are books, 327 of them. Despite the highlighting of graphic material such as maps, sketches, and other illustrations, they are harder to come by than text in both browsing and searching functions. Finding graphic material can be so challenging that even when “miscellaneous artwork was selected under “content type” with 23 related works, the first option, “Images of America from the Library of Congress” was a blank page.

The clear strength of the database in its wide variety of text option. But like the lack of images in a source with “Images” in the tile, if one is looking for facsimiles or scans of the originals, he or she will be disappointed. This shortcoming was also noted in a 2002 review of Alexander Street by Suzanne R. Graham, when Alexander Street was all of two years old. Little has changed in that regard in almost two decades and the addition of over 70 collections. All text appears in a uniform font. Three are some sources, such as “A Sketch of Creek Country 1798 and 1799” by Benjamin Hawkins that includes the a facsimile of the original manuscript source along with the transcription. However, there is no information on where the original is held. The citation information lists Alexander Street as publisher in 2003. This source was actually published in 1840, but there was no reason given as to why they chose to use the original, wherever that original may be held.

The advantage of the uniform appearance of the text is that it makes the search for specific words and terms quite efficient. Search options include a simple search box along with much more advanced search capabilities. One can search by words anywhere, full text, author/creator, topic, person, historical event, place, and publisher. If accessible through the particular institution, a researcher can expand the search to include additional Alexander Street databases such as Black Thought and Culture and North American Women’s Letters and Diaries. Searches can also be defined through date of creation or publication as well as place of creation or publication.

Original publication information is given for each document, but as noted above, location of unpublished materials is not included. Methodology of digitization is also not discussed within the database. If someone is looking for information on the original production such as views of binding, print font, or size of volumes, this is not the place to go. Their focus is clearly on offering easily searchable and readable primary source text material across a wide variety of categories. As long as that is where one’s interest ends, the database is extremely useful. They also include citation information for each source in a variety of formats which can be shared directly to several bibliographic programs.

Pricing options are not listed in the Terms and Conditions. From further research, Alexander Street offers pricing to institutions on a case by case basis. Access to the numerous collections Alexander Street offers is limited to those who are associated with a subscribing institution. Contact information is provided.

Alexander Street

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Bethesda, MD 20814

1 800 521 0600

A link to request information can be found on their “Contact Us” link at https://alexanderstreet-com.mutex.gmu.edu/contact-us

Previous review

Review of the Alexander Street Press Electronic Collections
Suzanne R. Graham, vol. 5, no. 1, May 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library May 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3310410.0005.110