Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

Ill. 3: Bar chart containing the absolute frequencies of watermarks’ height. The red line marks the mean.
ing platform that allows not only access to the watermark
databases, but also contains a variety of additional information
and tools for paper research.
The German Book and Scripts Museum of the German
National Library (DNB) in Leipzig has long recorded, documented,
and collected publications in various languages
about paper. The resulting bibliography is by far one of the
largest on this topic. Although its bibliographic database
was originally conceived as multinational, both its classifications
and subject headings, as well as all geographical
terms are only in German. A new database scheme was
therefore needed for Bernstein in order to provide multilingual
access. In cooperation with the DNB Leipzig, the integration
of the bibliographic database into the Bernstein
Workspace is now using the Cheshire3 search engine from
the University of Liverpool. Cheshire3 is a fast XML search
engine that has been jointly developed by the Universities
of Berkeley and Liverpool (see www.cheshire3.org) (Ill. 1).
It should also be noted, as a further example for Bernstein’s
networking with contextual data, that a cross-linking has
been created between the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
(ISTC) and the incunabula database in Bernstein (WILC).
Statistical graphs are an important tool for transmitting
and gaining insight into large amounts of data. With more
than 120,000 records and an expected annual growth of
ten percent, the Bernstein platform provides extensive op-
portunities for statistical analysis. For any data selection, basic
statistical parameters, such as mean and standard deviation,
can be calculated and also numerically and graphically
displayed. In the individual databases this is not possible.
A frequency chart can be created for each search item.
Furthermore, two parameters can be correlated and their
mutual dependence illustrated as a chart (Ill. 2).
Export functions for the statistical data and the possibility
to use the individual diagrams by means of copy and paste
complete the statistical features (Ill. 3).
Geographical indications such as ‘place of use’ or ‘depository’
are contained in the metadata of the individual
records. The geographical positions can be marked on maps
and thus visualized. Bernstein offers a GIS module with extensive
functionality for the visualization of geographical
data. Geographical maps can be created for any given selection
of data records (Ill. 4).
The current link between four databases in Bernstein only
makes sense if other databases participate in the project
in the future. The WIES (Watermarks in Incunabula printed
in España) database will be the fifth to be integrated into
Bernstein during its implementation period. A major concern
is to ensure the further growth of the integrated data
so that Bernstein can become strongly established and develop
into the main source for information on paper and
watermarks. In order to facilitate the creation of new wa-
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