Towards a virtual research environment for language and literature researchers

► This paper presents an e-infrastructure for the language and literature research community. ► We describe the infrastructure and services developed to overcome the issues in access and use of digital resources. ► Use of Grid and HPC to support bulk searching and workflow execution and implementation of MapReduce is also highlighted. ► We also describe our experiences in the use of the resource brokering WMS and the VOMS solutions. ► Finally we outline the experiences from the arts and humanities community on the usage of this infrastructure.