Since 1992, the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library has pursued twin missions with equal seriousness of purpose:

to build and maintain an internet-accessible collection of SGML texts and images;

to build and maintain user communities adept at the creation and use of these materials.

The Center combines an on-line archive of tens of thousands of SGML and XML-encoded electronic texts and images with a library service that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. Through ongoing training sessions and support of teaching and research projects, the Center is building a diverse user community locally, serving thousands of users globally, and providing a model for similar humanities computing enterprises at other institutions.