Europa Inventa

Toby Burrows, University of Western Australia

Taking Australia’s manuscript holdings to the world

Europa Inventa: History

• Developed by the ARC Network for Early European Research (NEER) – funded 2005 to 2010

• Covers Early European objects in Australian collections: about 300 manuscripts and 1,500 artworks and museum objects

• Now maintained by the University of Western Australia

• Builds on several printed catalogues (Sinclair 1969, Manion &

Vines 1984, Manion 2005, Stocks & Morgan 2008 etc.) and library catalogue records

• http://europa.arts.uwa.edu.au

Europa Inventa:Standards and Formats

• PostgreSQL database (originally FileMaker Pro) + custom-built search, browse and edit functions

• Format for manuscript records: Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines: Section 10, Manuscript Description

• Different format for artwork records: CDWA Lite (Getty Institute)

• Manuscript records split into (a) parent record for the manuscript as object, and (b) records for individual texts or items contained within that manuscript

• Sources: Sinclair’s 1969 Descriptive Catalogue, supplemented for later acquisitions by library on-line catalogues

• Links to digitized versions of manuscripts – especially those of the State Library of Victoria

Europa Inventa: Desiderata

• Work still needs to be done on normalizing and standardizing titles and authors

• Work still needs to be done on updating and correcting descriptions (particularly Sinclair’s), especially from the results of the ARC Linkage Project’s work on manuscripts in Victorian collections

• Doesn’t yet incorporate more detailed descriptions, e.g. of illuminated manuscripts in Manion & Vines 1984, State Library of Victoria’s exhibition catalogue 2008, articles and theses on specific manuscripts

• Doesn’t yet link to any related materials (other than digitized versions)

Manuscripts Online: WrittenCulture from 1000 to 1500

• JISC-funded project 2012, led by University of Sheffield + 5 other UK universities (Medieval Manuscripts Research Consortium)

• Single search across 21 datasets with manuscript descriptions and full-text transcriptions

• Europa Inventa records will be included in this search; also represented on the project’s Stakeholder Panel

• Other sources in Manuscripts Online will include Parker on the Web and the British Library’s Online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts

Other International Initiatives

• CERL Portal: search of multiple databases – 15,000 medieval manuscript records + 235,000 general manuscript records

• Manuscripta Mediaevalia (Germany): 75,000 manuscript records

• Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections: 5,200 manuscripts + 11,700 descriptions

• Medium (IRHT, Paris): 76,000 manuscript records; Initiale (IRHT): catalogue of illuminated manuscripts; Enluminures (IRHT): 5,000 digitized manuscripts;

• Manuscriptorium (Prague): EU-funded portal for descriptions of medieval manuscripts, incunabula etc. (including some digital images)

• Europeana Regia: EU-funded collection of 900 digitized medieval royal manuscripts

• Europeana: EU-funded digital library – over 46,000 “medieval” items

• Digital Scriptorium (US): 5,300 manuscripts and 24,300 images

• Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts (UCLA): 2,500 digitized manuscripts

Europa Inventa: Future Directions

• Enriched environment – new platform

Up-to-date summary descriptions Previous descriptions available for comparison In-depth supporting materials, analysis, commentary Links to on-line versions of research publications Annotations and comments – “mediated crowd-sourcing”

• Linked Data

Making descriptions available in suitable formats for use by Linked Data services

Creating unique identifiers (URIs) for Australian manuscripts and their components

Mapping to vocabularies used by other Linked Data services

Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/

VICTORIA [State Library of Victoria]223 Boethius DE MUSICA – Pseudo-Hucbaldus MUSICA ENCHIRIADIS – in Latin – 11c.Vellum, 305 x 210mm, A modern paper + B modern vellum + C contemporary vellum + 56 + D modern

vellum + E modern paper. Collation: (8)1-7. No catchwords, quire signatures in roman numerals placed in the centre of the lower margin of last folio verso of each gathering, foliation modern pencil in arabic numerals, no pagination. Av.-Bv., Cv., Dr.-Er. are blank. Some folios have been repaired. Most sheets have purple stains, however, they rarely efface the text. Worm-holes in fols 1-18 without loss of text.

Dark brown ink, ruling dry-point, one col. of 39-40 lines, Daseia musical notation. Prickings in outer margins. Script is first half 11c. Rhineland or northern Italian littera prae-gothica textualis. Explicit to the first text 49r. FINIT.

Decoration: orange rubrics and green, orange, or brown ink drawings.Edges cut and gilded, binding 19c. brown morocco over boards, gilt, by C. Lewis (see below), spine

gilt with lettering BOETII / MUSICA / M.S. / SEC. XIII (sic).Incipits: 2r. –ulescentis; 9r. His igitur; 55v. Alleluia; 56r. asterisco ostendi. Ownership: Cr. in a 15c.

littera hybrida currens is a schematic table of astrological texts mentioning such authorities as Ptolomaeus, Thebit, Iohannes Hispalensis, Alkabitus, Albumasaris, Alfagranus, and there follows immediately a much rubbed transcription of a commentary (here without ascription) on portion of Arzachel, Canones ad tabulas tholetanas and it begins: Quoniam cuiusque actionis72 archazel (sic) arabus composuit tabulas ad ciuitatem toletti…; 56v. among scribbles now almost illegible is a 15c. musical diagram of the diatesseron; Ar. has a note ‘Boetii Musica, an Ancient MS. in fine Condition with diagrams. A MS. of a work of rare occurrence bound by C. Lewis. H. Drury73 1824’; spine carries the small printed number ‘3345’, being that of Sir Thomas Phillipps; Ev. in modern pencil ‘W. H. Robinson 5.9.1949. £LE-N/a/-’; Ar. has the stock no. ‘587673’; Ev. bears the library’s shelf-mark *091/B63.

72 These opening words are underlined and are the incipit of Arzachel’s text, cf. Thorndike, 1268.73 Henry Drury (1778-1841); see above p.185 for another MS. he owned.

Current Difficulties

• Lack of standard terminology for describing manuscripts

• Inconsistent use of names, titles and concepts

• Different formats for manuscript descriptions

• Multiple languages for manuscript descriptions

• Difficult to trace relationships between different manifestations (images, transcriptions, editions)

• Difficult to trace relationships between manuscripts and their dependents (articles, books, commentaries)

• Too many sources: image collections, metadata collections, digital editions

Digital Object Collections

Publications

Descrip

tions / M

etadata

Annotations

Excerpts

Representations

Classifications

Exhibitions

RESEARCHERS INSTITUTIONS

Citations

Collections

Digital Object Collections

Publications

Description

s / Metadata

Annotations

Excerpts

Representations

Classifications

Exhibitions

RESEARCHERS INSTITUTIONS

Citations

Collections

Entities layer (Lin

ked Data)