Review by Róisín Pye (Studies, Volume 91)

A marvellous tool in this digital age ... content-rich, clear and well-structured"

"How weighty to me are your thoughts, 0 God! How vast is the sum of them! If I try to count them - they are more than the sand..." (Psalm 139). I shared that impression when I opened up this Library on my laptop, except that the Texts are not perhaps all God's thoughts!

This is a vast, well-integrated collection of texts, ranging from the early Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle to John Stuart Mill and William James. It has a well-judged set of classic writings that are now in the Public Domain. Its theological section features many works from Augustine and John Damascene right up to texts from Vatican II, along with two translations of the Bible (the NRSV and KJV) and a handy New Testament in Greek! And if you're a tired student, there are many interesting travel-books, biographies, poems and classic novels to dip into; take your pick from David Livingstone to Jane Austen; from T.E. Lawrence to D.H. Lawrence; from Omar Khayyan to Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf.

Library at your Fingertips promises to be a most helpful tool for student and lecturer alike. Gone are the days of laborious searching through the tomes in one's local library, with the help of the librarian and the computer database of course, for the author, topic and phrase that would just nicely sum up that essay that was due two hours ago. With this CD-Rom, you can search out that telling phrase over a range of 600 authors at the click of your mouse. The "General Table of Contents" acts as a basic home page, like in a website, with the table linking to twelve main areas of content...

This library is furnished with urbane, up-to-date introductions to each of the authors in the different sections, written by Patrick Rogers, who edited the CD. Another very useful tool is the search facility - you can choose the parameters of text or section you wish to browse, and enter in the phrase or word you're looking for. It certainly worked for me, and replaces the endless scanning of books I had to do in a hurry to find the needle in the haystack! To learn how to work the whole CD and get the best options, the help instructions guide you through the layout and a twenty minute session would set you up and teach you well.
In summary: a marvellous tool in this digital age of ours, content-rich, clear and well-structured, and I guarantee all users of this library many hours of happy browsing

Róisín Pye