St. Andrews U To Expand Digitization of Early European Books
Scotland's St. Andrews
University has selected a private partner to assist in its efforts to digitize early books, which will now include those written before 1650.
St.
Andrews' Universal
Short Title Catalogue (USTC)
is a database of every book printed from the invention of the printing
press
through 1601. The database, which, at the moment, lists 364,000 items,
also
details the physical location of the original texts. Thanks to a recent
grant
from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the USTC project will be funded
through
2018 and will be expanded to include all books published through 1650.
With
the new partnership, ProQuest will use the
database to identify the physical location of as many texts as possible
and
determine if they are in good enough condition to be digitized. As a
consequence, the texts, known in academia as Early European Books
(EEB), will
be available to researchers around the world. They will likewise become
resources for university libraries and help in the teaching of college
courses
in philosophy, religion, social sciences and medicine.
"The
agreement with ProQuest is intended to
facilitate the application of the analytical power of the USTC," said
St.
Andrews Modern History Professor Andrew Pettegree. He is also director
of the
USTC. "We're
excited about the
opportunity for the USTC to improve the present quality of EEB records,
and
advising strategic planning for development of the program."
Most
of the EEB documents — about 14 million
pages in 45,000 curated items — are in four National Libraries across
Europe,
including the Wellcome Trust in London.
"Working
with the University of St. Andrews will
enable us to enhance not only the resources already in our own EEB
collections,
but will increase our development of valuable materials at a much more
strategic level," said Susan Bokern, vice president of product
management for
ProQuest.
ProQuest
develops cloud-based digital research
tools.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.