The Playful Antiquarian

What was old is now digital

July 28th, 2003

Lately, it seems that my email in-box is being flooded with new digital project announcements. I must admit that although I would like to see more money spent on cataloging and caring for collections, it is very exciting to see so many interesting projects involving materials in archives and rare book collections.

Here is a very small sampling of some of the materials I have learned about in the past few days:

• The Digital Gutenberg Bible
  • I already mentioned this in my sideblog last Thursday, but I thought it needed a mention here (especially since many people cannot see my sideblog). George H. Williams posted links for all of the digitized Gutenberg Bibles on his blog. Surprisingly, I did not know about the Keio University one.
• The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834
  • A joint project of the University of Sheffield and the University of Hertfordshire, this online database currently contains 45,000 trials (1714-1799). More trials will be added in the coming months. The “On This Day” feature seems as if it could be interesting, but I kept getting an “unable to load file” error message when I clicked on the link.
• C18 Wiki (If this link does not work, try from the C18-L home page, listed below)
  • Several wikis for 18th century studies, including the C18 Wiki Glossary of Bibliography which was recently announced on the C18 listserv and the Exlibris listserv. The C18-L home page has a lot of other 18th century studies links to check out.

On a loosely related note, I spent a lot of time thinking about my blog over the weekend. I may switch my personal ramblings over to the sideblog and use this main blog for news, thoughts, etc. about print history and culture, rare book librarianship, and special collections digitization. And maybe once a week (on weekends, most likely) I will post longer essays as stories with links from this main page.

Of course, these are just thoughts, and I am subject (and quite likely) to change my mind.

Entry Filed under: Bookmarks