  This paper describes the Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts, the only
Internet-accessible collection of digital documents allowing the user to 1)
dynamically create customized, typographically readable documents on demand, 2)
search the content of one or more documents from the collection simultaneously,
3) create sets of documents from the collection for review and annotation, and
4) publish these sets of annotated documents in turn fostering a sense of
community around the Catalogue. More than a just a collection of links that
will break over time, Alex is an archive of electronic texts providing
unprecedented access to its content and features allowing it to meet the needs
of a wide variety of users and settings. Furthermore, the process of
maintaining the Catalogue is streamlined with tools for automatic acquisition
and cataloging making it possible to sustain the service with a minimum of
personnel.
