Wednesday, June 19, 2013

News from the Gnomon Bibliographische Datenbank

From Gnomon Bibliographische Datenbank by email
http://www.gnomon-online.de/gnomonimage/gnomon_db.jpg
In addition to the monthly updated online version
(http://www.gnomon-online.de), the Gnomon Bibliographic Database is
now also available as a full download for local installations.

The software installer and installation manuals in multiple languages
can be downloaded at
http://www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/de/lehrstuehle/geschichte/alte/projekte/GBD/Gnomon_Download.
Both versions are free of charge.

The GBD is a joint creation of the Chairs of Ancient History of the
Universities of Eichstätt and Augsburg. Comprising over 500000
entries, it is one of the most extensive database systems for
specialized literature in the Classics, also including literature on
the subject-specific history of the Classics. The GBD contains
monograph studies, anthologies, articles in periodicals, reviews, and
encyclopedias in various languages that can be searched with a
comprehensive and multilingual thesaurus (German, English, French,
Spanish, and Italian; currently around 25000 keywords). The
possibility of linking research results to YouTube-contents and
internet resources is currently a distinct feature of the GBD.
Moreover, cooperative collaborations enable the inclusion of new
publications of, for instance, the Bavarian State Library (Munich)
and, only recently, of the Joint Library of the Hellenic & Roman
Societies (London). The GBD also cooperates with the editorial team of
Gnomon (Munich) and the Virtual Library Classical Studies, Propylaeum.

 You can find further information on the database and current projects
at <http://www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/de/lehrstuehle/geschichte/alte/projekte/GBD>.

Pietro Bracci's 'lost' manuscript

Newly online at the Griffith Institute

Pietro Bracci's 'lost' manuscript

I Geroglifici ed Obelischi Eggizzi, 'opera postuma inedita di Pietro Bracci', 1767

Pietro Bracci (1700-1773) was a leading Roman sculptor of his time. Among his most important works are the colossal Oceanus (or Neptune) of the Trevi Fountain and the sculptures for several funerary monuments in Rome, including the tombs of Pope Benedict XIII in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and that of Pope Benedict XIV in the Basilica of Saint Peter. He is also renowned for a group of busts and a significant number of drawings which are now dispersed among numerous museums and collections around the world, including the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, both in Montreal, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. 

However, based on historical inventories of Bracci's manuscripts, most of them now lost, Bracci had many interests, including architecture, military engineering and sundials, to mention a few. An unpublished manuscript by Bracci on Egyptian hieroglyphs, probably started in the 1750s or 1760s but left unfinished, and which was believed to be lost, was in fact purchased by Sir Alan H. Gardiner, who later presented it to the former Ashmolean Museum library, and thence transferred to the Griffith Institute archive. This work, which constitutes one of the oldest holdings of the archive, is now being prepared to finally see the light of day for the first time. To celebrate Bracci's birthday in the month of June - there is some uncertainty about the exact date (16th or 26th depending on the author), we present here scans of some individual pages of this unique "jewel", a new surviving example of a pre-Champollion attempt to read and understand the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script, which is strongly influenced by the work of Athanasius Kircher.
http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/bracci-special/images/lr/Bracci_001r.jpg

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Announcing the Perseus Catalog, release 1.0

Announcing the Perseus Catalog, release 1.0

The Perseus Digital Library is pleased to announce the 1.0 Release of the Perseus Catalog.
Perseus LogoThe Perseus Catalog is an attempt to provide systematic catalog access to at least one online edition of every major Greek and Latin author (both surviving and fragmentary) from antiquity to 600 CE. Still a work in progress, the catalog currently includes 3,679 individual works (2,522 Greek and 1,247 Latin), with over 11,000 links to online versions of these works (6,419 in Google Books, 5,098 to the Internet Archive, 593 to the Hathi Trust). The Perseus interface now includes links to the Perseus Catalog from the main navigation bar, and also from within the majority of texts in the Greco-Roman collection.

The metadata contained within the catalog has utilized the MODS and MADS standards developed by the Library of Congress as well as the Canonical Text Services and CTS-URN protocols developed by the Homer Multitext Project.  The Perseus catalog interface uses the open source Blacklight Project interface and Apache Solr. Stable, linkable canonical URIs have been provided for all textgroups, works, editions and translations in the Catalog for both HTML and ATOM output formats. The ATOM output format provides access to the source CTS, MODS and MADS metadata for the catalog records. Subsequent releases will make all catalog data available as RDF triples.
Other major plans for the future of the catalog include not only the addition of more authors and works as well as links to online versions but also to open up the catalog to contributions from users. Currently the catalog does not include any user contribution or social features other than standard email contact information but the goal is to soon support the creation of user accounts and the contribution of recommendations, corrections and or new metadata.
Follow the links above for comments from Editor-in-Chief Gregory Crane on the history and purpose of the catalog.
The Perseus Digital Library Team

High-resolution recording: Ashurnasirpal II and Tutankhamun

Factum Foundation
Factum Foundation is a registered Foundation, established in 2009 and based in Spain, dedicated to the development and use of non-contact high-resolution digital recording as part of a coherent approach to the preservation, understanding and public exhibition of objects from our cultural heritage.

Advances in digital technology are dramatically and radically changing our understanding and appreciation of our shared cultural heritage. Science and technology are assisting art by providing forensically accurate information to both specialists and an interested public.
The foundation is dedicated to demonstrating that the way we understand the original object is part of a dynamic process and not a fixed state of being. When the dynamic nature of originality is successfully presented, works of art come alive - their complex biographies inform the present and influence the future.  When viewed in this way they cease to be discrete objects to be viewed in museums and become complex subjects that can reveal their past (and also reveal how they have been valued and cared for by previous generations in diverse locations). Read more

Projects
http://www.factumfoundation.org/cache/com_zoo/images/7_teaser_7aa0acaa6e1650e2c1423f7bff496f97.jpg


Facsimile of the Tomb of Tutankhamun

Digital Library for International Research, Middle East Research Journals Project

[First posted in AWOL 18 July 2009. Updated 18 June 2013]

Digital Library for International Research, Middle East Research Journals Project
http://www.dlir.org/templates/dlir/images/dlir_logo2.png
The Middle East Research Journals (MERJ) project, funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (2002-2006), provided digital access to five complete journals held at American Overseas Research Centers in the Middle East in the CAORC consortium. Additional materials created for this project are bibliographic records for 1,900 journals held at seven centers in the Middle East, a searchable index of three research journals, preservation microfilm for five research journals.

A searchable article-level index is available for the following titles:

  • Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (Jerusalem, 1920-1948)
  • Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine (London, 1931-1950)
  • Sumer (Baghdad, 1945-2000)
Digital full-text is available for the following journals:

  • Arkeoloji Dergisi, Izmir, 1991-1998
  • Arkeoloji-sanat Tarihi Dergisi, Izmir, 1984-1996
  • Bogazici University Journal-Beseri Bilimler, Istanbul, 1973-1981
  • Revue archéologique syrienne, Aleppo, 1931-1938
  • Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society, 1933-196


Meta: "Open Access" is now open Access

From MIT Press

Overview

The Internet lets us share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. We take advantage of this revolutionary opportunity when we make our work “open access”: digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Open access is made possible by the Internet and copyright-holder consent, and many authors, musicians, filmmakers, and other creators who depend on royalties are understandably unwilling to give their consent. But for 350 years, scholars have written peer-reviewed journal articles for impact, not for money, and are free to consent to open access without losing revenue.
In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn’t, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold. Distilling a decade of Suber’s influential writing and thinking about open access, this is the indispensable book on the subject for researchers, librarians, administrators, funders, publishers, and policy makers.

About the Author

Peter Suber is  Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication Office at Harvard, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, a Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Senior Researcher at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). He is widely considered the de facto leader of the worldwide open access movement.

Reviews

“[A] very important book...a must read for all scholars and researchers who publish their own work or consult the peer-reviewed published work of others—in other words, virtually all academics.” — Rob Harle, Leonardo Reviews

Paperback | $12.95 Trade | £9.95 | ISBN: 9780262517638 | 230 pp. | 5 x 7 in | July 2012
 

Monday, June 17, 2013

Seven Open Access Turkish Archaeological Journals

[First posted in AWOL 13 May 2010. Updated 17 June 2013]

Seven periodicals from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi (1933-1997)
Türk Etnografya Dergisi (1956-1997)
Türk Arkeoloji ve Etnografya Dergisi
Müze Çalışmaları ve Kurtarma Kazıları Sempozyumu Yayınları
Kazı Sonuçları Toplantıları
Arkeometri Sonuçları Toplantıları
Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantıları