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About

Features

Readux offers a web-based space to engage with digitized print materials. Readux is an open source software platform developed at Emory University’s Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (ECDS). With Readux, you can:

  • Import materials and organize them into collections.
  • Conduct research with works and publish digital editions.
  • Teach with rare materials and have students comment directly on the works.

For teachers and scholars, Readux provides a user-friendly way to publish critical editions as a stand-alone website and to develop interactive classroom projects. Think of it as a digital reading room where you can browse, search, and take notes in rare materials, then click a button to create a website with your personalized edition for personal and professional scholarly use.

For archives, scholarly collectives, and digital scholarship centers, Readux offers a way to organize and foster engagement with thematic collections of digitized print materials. Collection stewards can import materials from their own and other institutional repositories using the IIIF protocol or from the Internet Archive, refine metadata, and organize works into overlapping collections.

Learn more about Readux’s features in this short video.

Collections

This flagship Readux website, hosted by ECDS, features a growing selection of collections designed to support teaching and research at Emory University and beyond. These thematic collections of digitized works feature materials from Emory archives and those of partner organizations such as the CDC Museum and the Alabama Folklife Association. Collections include rare materials on topics including:

We invite you to use ECDS’s Readux site for your own research and teaching. Emory's Readux site is free and open to the public. To annotate or publish editions, you must log in to Readux with your Facebook, Google, GitHub, or Twitter account. You can read our Terms of Service.

We also invite your feedback. Contact ECDS or email the Readux team (readux@emory.edu) to learn more.

User Guide

The Readux User Manual offers step-by-step instructions on how to use Readux.

Partners

ECDS is pleased to partner with other institutions that are interested in using Readux to enhance engagement with digital collections. Our current partnerships include:

  • The University of North Carolina Press is co-publishing Readux digital scholarly editions with ECDS of vernacular sacred American songbooks as a part of the Sounding Spirit collaborative.
  • Brown University, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Michigan, the University of Tulas, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Emory University are collaborating with ECDS to publish the Sounding Spirit Digital Library, a Readux website that will feature more than 1,250 sacred music books published between 1850 and 1925.
  • The Alabama Folklife Association partners with ECDS to publish back issues of its Tributaries journal as a Readux collection.
  • The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives is partnering with ECDS to publish a Readux website featuring a digital library of rare Tibetan manuscripts.
  • The David J. Sencer CDC Museum is partnering with ECDS to publish a collection of historical ledgers from the early days of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We encourage you to partner with us to add new collections to ECDS’s Readux, or to deploy Readux at your own institution. Sholars whose requests are approved should allow at least one month for processing. To learn more, visit this page on partnering with us, and review the application form linked from the ECDS Propose a Project page.