Dear Colleagues,
Our librarian here passed this on to me, and I in turn pass it on to you.
Patrick Nugent
>We write to those of you who answered our questionnaire last year to let
>you know about the Digital Scriptorium project, its current status, and
>future plans.
>
>You will remember that the Digital Scriptorium is a pilot project
>organized by the Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library and UC
>Berkeley's Bancroft Library, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon
>Foundation, aimed at the creation of a visual union catalog of medieval
>manuscripts.
>
>We are pleased to announce that a test version of the database is now
>available for use at:
>
>http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/scriptorium/form.html
>
>This test database includes, as of February 4, 1999, descriptions of 2169
>medieval codices or documents (cut-off date ca. 1550, but with some
>materials as late as the 19th century) from the Union Theological
>Seminary, six libraries at Columbia and Barnard College, and three at
>Berkeley, with a total of 5865 images from those manuscripts. The oldest
>MSS catalogued date from the 9th century. Texts are found in
>Catalan, Czech, Dutch, English, Flemish, French, German, Greek,
>Icelandic, Italian, Latin, Occitan, Portuguese, and Spanish.
>
>For the time being access to the Digital Scriptorium is free. We encourage
>both you and your colleagues to make use of it for research, reference,
>and instruction, and to give us your opinions as to its value. You should
>be aware that the database now available was designed primarily for
>in-house use, to control the creation of short descriptions for each
>manuscript as well as the digital imaging process. We have made it
>searchable via the web, but the current search and retrieval capabilities
>reflect those of the Access database. [The Access database itself, by the
>way, is available to any institution that would like to contribute
>materials to the Digital Scriptorium as well as for experimentation. If
>you are interested in this possibility, please contact Charles Faulhaber
>(cfaulhab.berkeley.edu) or Consuelo Dutschke ([log in to unmask])]
>
>We are currently working with the international Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
>to create an SGML-based template (Document Type Description or DTD)
>for the description of medieval
>manuscripts. After testing this template, we shall port
>the current database into it, which will enhance the Digital
>Scriptorium's search and display capabilities considerably. Once we have
>done this, we still plan to establish the fee-based service described
>in our survey questionnaire; but we do not expect this to happen until
>the fall of 1999 at the earliest.
>
>As part of the project Michael Sperberg-McQueen, U.S. editor of the TEI,
>has developed for us a DTD for the
>transcription of medieval manuscripts. For a description and documentation
>see http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/Scriptorium/transcription.html. If you are
>interested in testing the DTD and giving us feedback,
>please contact Merrilee Proffitt ([log in to unmask]).
>
>Plans for the expansion of the Digital Scriptorium are under way.
>Columbia and Berkeley plan to add the medieval MSS of a number of smaller
>institutions in California and New York in the immediate future. We also
>have an NEH proposal pending to extend the project to other major U.S.
>libraries. Finally, we are collaborating with the European Union's MASTER
>(Manuscript Access through Standards for Electronic Records) project to
>test the SGML template now under development in nine major European libraries
>for eventual adoption as an international standard.
>
>For more detailed information on the Digital Scriptorium, please see:
>http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/Scriptorium/
>
>Attached please find the results of the survey of libraries and
>scholars in Microsoft Word97 format.
>
>Charles B. Faulhaber, The Bancroft Library ([log in to unmask])
>Jean Ashton, Rare Book & Manuscript Library ([log in to unmask])
>Consuelo Dutschke, Rare Book & Manuscript Library ([log in to unmask])
>Merrilee Proffit, The Bancroft Library ([log in to unmask])
>
>
>Charles Faulhaber The Bancroft Library UC Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
>(510) 642-3781 FAX (510) 642-7589 [log in to unmask]
>
__________________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 983-1413
[log in to unmask]
__________________________________
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