David & David -- I agree with the two of you and Austin Kerr that the Standard Encyclopedia remains very useful. It is a monument of temperance movement scholarship, with its global coverage greatly enhanced by the worldwide network of missionaries which could be called upon at that time. (As so often with social movements, the scholarship reaches its height just as the movement is losing its political significance!) For instance, when Julia Lee was working on alcohol in Chinese poetry, we could not find anything else as detailed on alcohol in ancient Chinca (nowadays, there's also the somewhat quirky "Grandiose survey of Chinese alcoholic drinks and beverages", http://ocean.wxuli.edu.cn/wine/umain.htm). We were very happy indeed about 20 years ago at the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley when Ron Stall came in with a set of the Encyclopedia for the library that he had picked up at a flea market stall for $10. In many places (particularly outside the US) it is not very available. I wonder whether it might be worth approaching the Society for the Study of Addiction (http://www.addiction-ssa.org/ssa_3.htmabout) to see if they might be willing to host it on their website. It seems appropriate, somehow, in view of their status as the oldest research society in the field. Robin -----Original Message----- From: David [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, 13 April 2001 3:21 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem Putting the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem on the web would be worthwhile only if it can be scanned with accuracy. That would require a full proofreading of the scanned text. Too many things are being put up on the web that are flawed and potentially misleading to people who naively assume the web's reliability. Is there an angel out there who would be willing to support the use of top-quality scanning equipment and the human proofreading to follow? Would the ladies of the WCTU be interested in making a grant to a university. Northern Illinois University has a digitization center that would be capable of doing the work, but the funding would need to come from elsewhere. David Kyvig David Fahey wrote: > Arguably, the most important reference work in temperance history is the > Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, 6 vols., ed. Ernest Hurst > Cherrington (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue, 1925-30), which tried to > cover the entire world. Would it be worth the trouble of somebody to scan > it and place it on the Web? A number of larger reference works published > early in the 20th century are available on the Web. What would be the > problems? What would be required to post the Standard Encyclopedia? Is > the print version readily available to researchers?