Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>The</strong> sheets are now stored in new containers that were<br />
custom-made to house the Corpus; the containers are<br />
made from archival materials suitable for the long-term<br />
conservation of paper-supported cultural heritage.<br />
<strong>Bernstein</strong> – <strong>The</strong> Memory of Paper<br />
98<br />
P.F.M. / V.N. (M.L.)<br />
<strong>The</strong> “<strong>Bernstein</strong> – the memory of paper” <strong>Project</strong> is being<br />
sponsored by the European Union within the framework of<br />
the eContentplus programme. <strong>The</strong> name of the project derives<br />
from a metaphor: Just as amber that encloses an insect<br />
is valuable, historical paper contains watermarks that<br />
are a special sign <strong>and</strong> mark of quality. If one holds either<br />
amber or paper containing a watermark up to the light, its<br />
treasure is divulged to the viewer.<br />
<strong>The</strong> project, which began in September 2006, is planned<br />
to run for thirty months. <strong>The</strong> goal is to create an integrated<br />
European internet site containing information about historical<br />
paper. Of key interest are the watermark databases that<br />
are already available online (Piccard-Online: http://www.piccard-online.de;<br />
the Viennese “Watermarks of the Middle<br />
Ages”: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/ksbm/wz/wzma2.htm; the<br />
collection of “Watermarks in Incunabula printed in the Low<br />
Countries”: http://watermark.kb.nl; NIKI’s “International<br />
Database of Watermarks <strong>and</strong> Paper Used for Prints <strong>and</strong><br />
Drawings (ca. 1450–1800)”: http://www.iuoart.org/wmdb.htm).<br />
It is planned to create a multi-lingual watermark portal<br />
that will enable research with coordinated <strong>and</strong> st<strong>and</strong>ardized<br />
terminology. <strong>The</strong> goal is also to offer links to research<br />
tools <strong>and</strong> digital sources for research on paper.<br />
<strong>The</strong> basic idea of the <strong>Bernstein</strong> <strong>Project</strong> is, above all, the<br />
creation of a technical infrastructure that will allow the<br />
greatest number of users access to information on paper<br />
<strong>and</strong> watermarks. <strong>The</strong> main groups of users will be histori-<br />
ans, art historians, researchers of manuscripts <strong>and</strong> incunabula,<br />
conservationists, the art market, <strong>and</strong> last but not least,<br />
the paper industry. Taking part in the project are some of<br />
Europe’s most eminent figures in the field of watermark collecting<br />
<strong>and</strong> digitalization, who are working together with<br />
specialists in historical paper – a joint effort between the<br />
humanities <strong>and</strong> information sciences.<br />
<strong>Bernstein</strong> project partners:<br />
• Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna: <strong>Project</strong> management,<br />
digital image processing tools, database systems<br />
(WZMA), research on manuscripts.<br />
• L<strong>and</strong>esarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart: Database<br />
systems (Piccard-Online), watermark nomenclature <strong>and</strong><br />
watermark classification.<br />
• Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris:<br />
Quantitative history of paper, prints of the Renaissance.<br />
• Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Leipzig: International bibliography<br />
of paper history.<br />
• Dutch University Institute for Art History, Florence: Paper<br />
in art history (NIKI).<br />
• Delft University of Technology, Delft: Intelligent digital<br />
image processing.<br />
• Koninklijke Bibliotheek, <strong>The</strong> Hague: Database systems<br />
(WILC), incunabula printed in the Netherl<strong>and</strong>s.<br />
• Institute for Information Systems <strong>and</strong> Computer Media,<br />
University of Technology, Graz: Integration of software<br />
(implementation), user interface, knowledge management<br />
systems, digital libraries.<br />
• University of Liverpool: Distributed search functions, disambiguation<br />
of names, cross-domain resource discovery,<br />
text mining.<br />
http://www.bernstein.oeaw.ac.at/<br />
http://www.thememoryofpaper.eu<br />
C.K. (C.-P.-K.)