Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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standard developed for the description of archival f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g aids. The project extended the EAD with
several specific adaptations for co<strong>in</strong>s, such as to describe physical attributes like iconography.
Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the website, this project seems to be the first that has applied EAD to numismatics. They
found EAD to be useful because it not only allowed them to describe the physical attributes of each
co<strong>in</strong> but also to encode “adm<strong>in</strong>istrative history, essays, and <strong>in</strong>dex terms” <strong>in</strong> XML and thus create
sophisticated metadata for search<strong>in</strong>g and brows<strong>in</strong>g. Further technical and metadata details of their
implementation have been expla<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> Gruber (2009). Gruber expla<strong>in</strong>ed that one important step <strong>in</strong>
creat<strong>in</strong>g EAD descriptions of the object was that subject specialists normalized co<strong>in</strong> legends and
personal and place names to support standardized search<strong>in</strong>g of proper Lat<strong>in</strong> names and abbreviations
(e.g., a search for co<strong>in</strong>s “m<strong>in</strong>ted <strong>in</strong> Greek Byzantium or Roman Constant<strong>in</strong>ople” could thus be
accomplished by search<strong>in</strong>g for Istanbul). This encod<strong>in</strong>g of personal names, geographic names, and
deities, among others, was essential for “establish<strong>in</strong>g authority lists for faceted brows<strong>in</strong>g and
normalization” and thus made for more sophisticated textual search<strong>in</strong>g. Gruber also reported that they
used Apache Solr, 439 an “open source search <strong>in</strong>dex based on the Lucene Java library” that <strong>in</strong>cludes a
number of useful features such as hit highlight<strong>in</strong>g and facet<strong>in</strong>g.
The database for the University of Virg<strong>in</strong>ia Art Museum Numismatic Collection can be searched or
browsed. A basic search <strong>in</strong>cludes the ability to search multiple terms <strong>in</strong> a variety of fields (keyword,
century, collection, deity, denom<strong>in</strong>ation, geographical location, iconography, etc.); an advanced search
makes use of Lucene query syntax. This collection also offers a faceted brows<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>terface where co<strong>in</strong>s
can be browsed by different categories (city, collection, deity, material, name, etc.). Records for each
co<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>clude multiple images (<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g high-resolution ones), descriptive <strong>in</strong>formation, archival
<strong>in</strong>formation, a bibliography, and a list of <strong>in</strong>dex terms such as personal names and subjects that have
been l<strong>in</strong>ked to entries <strong>in</strong> Wikipedia and other digital classics resources (Livius.org, Theoi.com).
Individual records have permanent URLs that are easy to cite, and a social bookmark<strong>in</strong>g feature is
available for each record. 440 One useful feature is that this entire record can be pr<strong>in</strong>ted; another unique
feature of this collection is the ability to compare two co<strong>in</strong>s.
Several smaller <strong>in</strong>dividual numismatic collections have been created as parts of museum exhibitions or
educational resources. For example, “Bearers of Mean<strong>in</strong>g: The Ottilia Buerger Collection of Ancient
and Byzant<strong>in</strong>e Co<strong>in</strong>s” 441 <strong>in</strong>cludes a series of thematic essays and a catalog of almost 150 co<strong>in</strong>s. Each
catalog entry <strong>in</strong>cludes images, descriptive <strong>in</strong>formation, provenance, bibliography, and a descriptive
entry. 442 While the “Bearers of Mean<strong>in</strong>g” website was designed to accompany an educational exhibit,
other museums have provided onl<strong>in</strong>e access to their entire numismatic databases. The Bruce Brace
Co<strong>in</strong> Collection 443 at McMaster University Museum of Art <strong>in</strong>cludes 272 Roman co<strong>in</strong>s, a series of
thematic tours, and a time l<strong>in</strong>e. The collection can be searched only by a general search box (with no
limits). Records for <strong>in</strong>dividual co<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong>clude images, time l<strong>in</strong>e year, condition, location, provenance, a
description and additional notes, and references to numismatic catalogs. One unique feature of this
collection is the ability to zoom <strong>in</strong> on <strong>in</strong>dividual images at great detail us<strong>in</strong>g a tool called Zoomify.
Another onl<strong>in</strong>e exhibit is the “Co<strong>in</strong>age of Ephesus” at Macquarie University <strong>in</strong> Sydney. 444 This
website <strong>in</strong>cludes a lengthy essay about the collection that is divided <strong>in</strong>to chapters with l<strong>in</strong>ks to the
<strong>in</strong>dividual co<strong>in</strong>s and an <strong>in</strong>teractive gallery of co<strong>in</strong>s (that requires Flash to view). Click<strong>in</strong>g on a co<strong>in</strong>
439 http://lucene.apache.org/solr/
440 For example, http://co<strong>in</strong>s.lib.virg<strong>in</strong>ia.edu/display-uvaid=n1990_18_3
441 http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/art/buerger/
442 For example, see http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/art/buerger/catalogue/033.html
443 http://tapor1.mcmaster.ca/~co<strong>in</strong>s/<strong>in</strong>dex.php
444 http://learn.mq.edu.au/webct/RelativeResourceManager/15043963001/Public Files/<strong>in</strong>dex.htm