Bloomsbury and Faber announce Drama Online

NEWS RELEASE: Bloomsbury and Faber announce Drama Online – a new partnership to provide online access to the world's finest drama from the last two and half thousand years.

 

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and Faber and Faber Limited are pleased to announce a new partnership to develop a digital content platform for libraries, educators, students and researchers to be sold via subscription and perpetual access to academic institutions.

 

Drama Online, launching in October 2012, is the ultimate online resource for plays, critical analysis and performance.  Featuring the pre-eminent drama lists from Methuen Drama, Arden Shakespeare and Faber and Faber, Drama Online will offer a complete digital library of the most studied, performed and critically acclaimed plays from the last two and a half thousand years.  

 

From the works of Aeschylus in 5^th Century BC to the present day, Drama Online will provide unique access to the finest drama literature. Titles will include the most highly regarded scholarly editions of Shakespeare - the Arden Shakespeare Series; realist works from Ibsen and Chekhov; foreign works in translation; comic masterpieces from Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward; modern classics by leading writers Caryl Churchill, Simon Stephens, Edward Bond, Alan Ayckbourn, Christopher Hampton, Brian Friel, John Osborne, David Greig, David Harrower, April De Angelis, David Hare, Anthony Neilson, Shelagh Stephenson and David Eldridge among many others; the very latest contemporary writers including Polly Stenham, Katori Hall and Lucy Prebble and the works of theatre companies such as Complicite and Filter. The collection will be continually updated with the very latest writing from new and established writers.

 

In addition Drama Online will offer expert guidance in the form of scholarly notes, annotated texts, critical analysis and contextual information. A regularly-expanding portfolio of performance and practitioner texts from theory to backstage and acting guides coupled with images, video and audio material will make this an essential study tool meeting the full range of drama teaching needs.

 

Drama Online presents unique functionality not found in any other platform. Users will be able to search full text and across genres, periods, authors and themes; analyse lines per character; view a rehearsal grid for each play; find monologues; print lines for a character; export extracts with citations in place; save and share materials.

 

Drama Online is an advanced study tool for students and scholars developed in full consultation with academics, researchers and librarians.

 

Key features and benefits:

 

• Integrated access to hundreds of plays and reference works
• Regularly updated with contemporary plays and study materials
• Expert guidance with annotated texts, scholarly editions and critical material
• Powerful full text searching and advanced search options
• Filtered browsing across authors, periods, genres and themes
• Personalisation features: annotate, save, share, extract, citation options
• Simple navigation and intuitive user interface, easily accessible from VLEs
• View cast size and the number of lines per character
• Rehearsal grids illustrate when characters appear in scenes
• Quick access to `part books': lines for individual characters
• Option to turn textual notes on or off
• Detailed monologues and audition speech search
• View parallel texts on screen
• Simple navigation and intuitive user interface, easily accessible from VLEs
• Comfortable on screen reading experience complete with pagination, stage directions and lineation in place
• Cross referencing via DOI (Digital Object Identifiers) and OpenURLs
• Industry standard access: unlimited concurrent access via IP recognition, ATHENS/Shibboleth, library cards, and username and password for remote users.
• COUNTER-compliant usage statistics and library branding
• Extensive online help and excellent customer and technical support
• Building on functionality from Bloomsbury's award-winning Berg Fashion Library www.bergfashionlibrary.com

 

Nigel Newton, Chairman and Chief Executive of Bloomsbury Publishing described the resource as a "Very exciting and truly unique way of providing access to the finest drama literature. Many iconic works in this collection have never been made available digitally before and we are delighted to be working in partnership with Faber. "

 

Stephen Page, Chief Executive and Publisher of Faber and Faber noted: "This partnership between two independent publishers will make available a unique and extraordinary resource for the study of drama and we are delighted to be working closely with Bloomsbury to develop it over the coming years."

 

For more information visit www.dramaonlinelibrary.com