The web site for the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH‐Web) outlines the purposes and activities of this organization. According to the main statement of purpose, the ACH endeavors to give its worldwide, professional members the means “for working in computer‐aided research in literature and language studies, history, philosophy, and other humanities disciplines, and especially research involving the manipulation and analysis of textual materials.” The layout of the page is very simple, with a white background and black letters. There are some graphics, but these are kept at a minimum. Therefore, this web site is very fast and practical, serving the needs of site visitors who are more interested in the research rather than some pretty pictures. Some of the links, which are less related to the Association’s main objectives, get a little more elaborate than the ACH home page. Surprisingly this does not hinder the speed at which one is able to move from link to link.
The ACH provides a link to administrative information, including the names of its officers and its Constitution and Bylaws (http://www.ach.org/ACH_Officers/index.html). This information is open to anyone interested. The only link not accessible to the general public is the one leading to the closed door proceedings of the Executive Council.
Also, ACH and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), hold a joint annual conference with each organization hosting the meeting every other year (ACH‐ALLC 1997, http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/achallc97/; ALLC‐ACH 1996, http://www.ach.org/mla 96/index.html).
The last major component of the ACH web page is a listing of its publications and electronic resources, of which there are many. It appears that this abundance of publications provides more than enough outlets for scholars interested in technological and humanistic studies. Although I am not an expert in this field, I found it odd that an organization of this sort would apparently have more than one official journal. The ACH Newsletter, a quarterly publication, (http://www.ach.org/ACH_Newsletter/index.html) includes the happenings with the organization itself as well as a discussion of issues. Computers and the Humanities (http://Kapis.www.wkap.nl/kapis/CGI‐BIN/WORLD/journal home.htm?0010‐4817), published six times a year, is concerned with the research in the field. Some issues that are discussed have to do with humanistic studies and “methodologies and applications to creation and the use of digital texts, databases, images, sound, video, and mixed media” as well as legal and pedagogical problems.
The Humanist Discussion Group (http://www.princeton.edu/mccarty/humanist/humanist.html) is an electronic seminar focusing on scholarly, pedagogical, and social issues. A branch of the discussion is centered on humanities computing, specifically in terms of finding new and more efficient ways of teaching using computers. The online journal, Machine Learning Online (http://mlis.www.wkap.nl/), is yet another forum of discussion about education and computing.
The Kluwer Academic Publishers (http://www.wkap.nl/), the backbone of the ACH’s publications, is accessible by way of most of the previous pages mentioned. Its graphics are much more pronounced than that of any of the other sites, yet it is just as fast. The search capability is not too complex, yet covers a whole range of options. One can search for books, journals, book series, or by all of these criteria. Also, within these broad categories, it is possible to look up titles, authors, affiliations, book series, ISBN, or ISSN. The Boolean capability works well enough for the average user. Truncation is also supported. The results of searches come up very quickly considering how much must be published. I was not able to ascertain how much is not being retrieved when searching.
Overall, this site is an excellent resource for scholarship on technology and humanistic studies. The ways that one can express his/her views and present research are numerous: through administrative work, publications, online discussions, and conferences. The information regarding the activity of the organization is kept up‐to‐date, as it should be for this field. I reached no dead ends except in trying to reach the password protected area concerning the Executive Council of the ACH. In addition, some of the information was not complete because the pages were under construction. This happened only rarely, however. I highly recommend this site.
