NB Bookshelf Library
The NB Bookshelf Library is a collection of over 200 books in both text (.TXT) and PDF (Adobe Acrobat) formats. A pre-indexed Orbis textbase for NB 9 is included so that you can use NB Orbis to search the text files immediately, without any textbase setup required. Those with NB 10 will need to set up their own Orbis textbase using instructions that are provided.
The works that are included are classics from the western literary tradition and have been selected from the American Library Association's reading checklists for college students and university course syllabi for undergraduate degree programs. Titles include works by Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dickens, Hawthorne, Aristotle and many more. Click here for a complete list.
NB Bookshelf is available via download or on CD. The download is provided in two parts: the TXT versions with the Orbis textbase (about 73 MB compressed), and the PDF versions (about 213 MB compressed). You can choose to install either the TXT versions with the Orbis textbase (about 150 MB installed), or the PDF versions (about 300 MB installed), or both. You must have Scholar’s Workstation or Lingua Workstation to search the entire collection with Orbis. The .TXT files can be opened in Nota Bene (or in any word processor); PDF files can be opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader. (If you don’t have Acrobat Reader, you can download a free copy from Adobe).
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Text (.TXT) files
with Orbis Textbase for searching
Each of the included works is in a separate text file. A pre-indexed Orbis textbase is included, enabling you to have instant access to all the material in this large library. If you prefer, you can create additional textbases to search some but not all of the texts.
Having access to a wide range of searchable texts in the western literary tradition might:
Help you focus better on a selected topic (or even, in some cases, suggest one entirely) for a journal article (or maybe you’ve been asked to contribute to a festschrift, and want to do something out of the ordinary)
Enable you to ask better questions about a topic already chosen (for example, if you could see how a word is used elsewhere, you might be better positioned to discover how your chosen author uses it differently)
Provide background and/or comparative information about how a topic which you are working on is thematized in some of the rest of the tradition
Give you a better general background to parts of the tradition by seeing how motifs and patterns are repeated by others
Simply serve as a spur to your imagination
Be an occasion to have some good clean fun
For example, does it mean anything that Eliot uses the word “anger” in 123 paragraphs in the five books of hers included in the collection, but that Hardy uses it only 24 times in five (longer) books? Or that four of the top six works that mention “forgiveness” the most often are by the Russian authors Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy? Maybe. Maybe not.
But whether it helps you with your new journal article or manuscript or not, the odds are that by searching the library you’ll find something of interest, something to enliven your imagination.
Note: These texts are all public domain, and in most cases can be downloaded from various sites on the Internet. These texts are not critical editions. They are not (with a very few exceptions) marked with NB formatting (even underlined or italicized text will not show up properly). However, they are “paragraphed” (except for some of the poems). The formatting with full paragraphs, rather than the hard returns at the end of each line that you often see in downloaded text, means that the works can be searched with Orbis, using the paragraph as the basic entry unit (the unit of text retrieved in your searches). This makes Boolean searches more useful, not only for the Orbis textbase that is included with the collection, but for any smaller Orbis textbases that you may choose to build.
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PDF ebooks for reading
The same titles are available in PDF format. This collection of pdf ebooks installs as a complete self-contained ebook library that can be read anytime. Each text is a high quality pdf ebook, carefully formatted as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.
You can use these ebooks to:
Copy quotes and excerpts to your papers--so you don't have to retype them! (Unlike some others, these ebooks are not locked, which means you can copy passages you need to quote in your papers.)
Print to hard copy if you like or when you need a paper copy (another virtue of having the ebooks unlocked).
Read with ease: the high-quality pdf format, using print-publishing grade fonts maximizes onscreen readability.
Most ebooks force the reader to scroll through text, rendering onscreen reading cumbersome and likely to cause eye fatigue. The unique two-page fixed layout of these versions lets you use the Page Down key to "turn the page," and makes reading our ebooks more like reading a regular book. To make things even easier, hyperlinked contents take you directly to where you want to go.
When you open these ebooks, you'll “see” the difference electronic publishing craftmanship can make in the onscreen reading experience.
PDF ebooks are a collection of copyrighted e-ditions of public domain texts published by TheWriteDirection. (c) Copyright 2004 TheWriteDirection
 
 
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To place your order, or to check prices, go to our secure order form. Or call us at 1-800-4NB-ORDER (1-800-462-6733) or 212-334-0445 (office hours are Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, Eastern Standard Time).
If you have any questions, call us at the above numbers or send an
e-mail to sales@notabene.com.
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