The original sources are all available in the library, and researchers who want to investigate further can easily do so using paper sources. All of the texts we will use are in English. Occasional maps, graphs and photographs that are encountered will be scanned into GIF or JPEG format, so they can be downloaded and examined using basic software. Distance learning will become a reality as students can research term papers from their dorms or apartments much easier than they can at any library. In an era focused on hardware solutions to computerized learning, UI-TEXT96 will stress content of the sort that experienced professors prefer to use but cannot because of the limitations of paper.
Historians teach through source documents the way scientists teach through laboratories.
The problem is that the sources are hard to assemble and hard to use. Putting a 10-volume collection in the Library Reserve Room is not an option when the originals are out of print. The old paper books simply cannot tolerate having several thousand students thumb through them looking for information, or xeroxing the same sections hundreds of times. Cheap reprints are possible in literature, but are not feasible in history. Teachers and scholars have realized for 10 or 20 years that electronic texts are the solution, but until 1995 the process of creating electronic files was far too expensive.