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

Ill. 3: Piccard-Online: Structural view (French)
gins with an overview of all the watermark motifs showing
how the watermarks in the respective volume are ordered.
This overview has been transferred into Piccard-Online as a
cascading menu. As is common practice in archival listings,
when beginning a search, a directory of the main motifs is
provided on the left side of the screen (Ill. 1). On the right
side of the screen are found thumbnails of the respective
motifs. By clicking on a thumbnail, which is a proto-type of
the watermarks classified within a particular group, its subgroups
then appear in the form of more finely differentiated
drawings of the motifs. Parallel to these, a list of short
texts describing the chosen watermark image opens on the
left side of the screen, also in the form of a cascading
menu. A sub-group opens with a mouse click on its name.
Each group has a file icon, which has a plus sign if there are
further sub-groups to be found. In this way the user can
continue to navigate down the branches until finding a
group of watermarks that match the example best. At the
end of each group is found a list of the watermarks available
in the Piccard Index. Each card can be individually
opened, revealing an enlarged image that can be studied,
measured, displayed as a mirror image, or printed (Ill. 2).
Additional information held in the database can also be displayed,
including Piccard’s original remarks and further information
such as the size of the watermark and the distance
between the paper’s chain lines. These details can be
printed out with the watermark, or saved as a bookmark. A
1:1 reproduction of every watermark in the index is available
in PDF format. By printing out two watermarks and
laying them on top of one another, it can be determined
whether they are identical.
In addition to an image-based search, it is possible in Piccard-Online
to conduct a full text search, a decided advantage
over the printed volumes. The full-text search is supplemented
with lists of exhibition locations, exhibitors and
dates. In addition, a multilingual version of Piccard-Online
has recently been made available. The cascading menu,
navigation bar and search mask are now in English, French
and German, and searches can be conducted in all three
languages (Ill. 3).
* * *
Piccard-Online – Digitale Präsentationen von Wasserzeichen und
ihre Nutzung, hg. von Peter Rückert, Gerald Maier, Jeannette Godau
(= Werkhefte der Staatlichen Archivverwaltung Baden-Württemberg,
Serie A, Heft 19), Stuttgart 2007.
J.G. (C.P.-K.)
Watermarks of the Middle Ages
(“Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters”, WZMA)
The main goal of the project “Watermarks of the Middle
Ages” being conducted by the Kommission für Schrift- und
Buchwesen des Mittelalters of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
has been the chronological ordering of the undated
paper manuscripts from the Middle Ages in Austrian libraries.
This is being done by comparing their watermarks
to those in dated manuscripts or in manuscripts whose
dates can be restricted to a few years. This should complement
related research, such as investigations concerning
the development of handwriting.
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