In addition to editing, over the past few months I have been busy at work each day, nibbling away at a number of improvements to the website that I hope will make it more useful to you. For example:
- I am going through each of the PDF files and trimming out blank and worthless pages, making sure that background OCR has been performed on each file (so you can search for text phrases), and creating bookmarks and hyperlinks where feasible, to make navigating these files a little easier.
- Each of the larger “Works” volumes is being broken down into component parts, so you don’t have to download the whole volume to get just the one sermon you want.
- Works that are keyed to a specific text of Scripture are being cataloged in the Scripture Index (see the navigation bar above). Try this out—it is very useful, and already stocked with thousands of texts!
- A Topical Index, which is on hold right now, presently containing only a very small fraction of the works included on this website.
- I am in the process of enabling comments for each page, so that we may dialogue on specific aspects of each Puritan author’s life and/or works.
- I am experimenting with adding “Like” buttons to each work on the site, so that you can quickly see which works are most popular when trying to decide what to read from an author you might not be familiar with. My sandbox for this is the John Flavel page. I anticipate that several fun things can be done with the data mined from this…
- I have been downloading and scrubbing texts from EEBO’s web page, where appropriate. See my prior post on text scrubbing (a computerized process of cleaning up the texts so they are a little more readable).
- I have been trying to incorporate texts from J.I. Packer’s online texts, where appropriate.
It will probably take a few years to get all of these things completely done, but check back frequently—the site should become better and better with each visit. If you have any suggestions, or see any broken links or errors, please let me know!
Hello, i just wanted to thank you for your all you work. As i am growing in my interest regarding the puritans and their lives your Site is a treasure trove. I read Packers “Puritans Portraits” and was eager to see if there are some more information in the Web and than i found your site. Wow. My our King Jesus reward you for the hours and hours you have put into this site. Looking forward to explore more of all the good old puritans. For the Moment i only am used to the Big Names. But we will see what there is to find. Greetings from a Germany Missionary working in Albania.
Hello,
Just a note that the photo currently used for John Preston does not appear to be the right one. From a quick search the image used for Preston appears to be a Doctor named Thomas Willis. Here is, I think, a proper painting / sculpture of Preston: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Preston.jpg
Blessings,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Isaac! I have corrected the error. GM
I Just want to let you know what a blessing this website is to my wife and I. We thank the Lord that such godly resources are so easily available.
The only suggestion that I have is two add two Puritans- Christopher Love and William Greenhill. Both of these men have been huge blessings to me in the Christian life, and I believe their writings would bless many others.
Thank you Mr. Drake! I agree, Christopher Love and William Greenhill are excellent; both are on the list of Puritans to add to the website.