Digitisation of old documents in the National Library of the Czech Republic: a complex solution
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040643 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| Pages | 44-50 |
| Author | Adolf Knoll |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Digitisation of old
documents in the
National Library of the
Czech Republic:
a complex solution
by Adolf Knoll, National Library of the
Czech Republic, Prague
The digitisation programme of
the
National
Library of
the
Czech Republic focuses on the
preservation of, and provision of
access
to,
old manuscripts and other rare historical
documents.
The
programme involves serious
consideration of scholars' needs for images
as 'compressions of
reality';
the definition of
an extended SGML DTD for the description of
compound documents; and the production of
a CD-ROM containing examples and tools for
non-commercial use.
Introduction
The roots of the digitisation programme of the
National Library of the Czech Republic lie in
UNESCO's Memory of the
World
programme.
Launched in 1992, the aim of UNESCO's pro-
gramme was to make a substantial contribution to
the conservation and preservation of the world's
documentary heritage. In this programme, the
importance of using modern, digital technologies
to guarantee long-term access to rare documents
was stressed from the outset.
Old manuscripts, incunabula and printed docu-
ments are often unique or preserved in a very
small number of copies, presenting serious diffi-
culties for research scholars whose only options
until recently might have been either to travel long
distances to see originals or to place orders for
microfilm copies. Travelling is expensive; ar-
chives of
rare
material are not always open to all;
and microfilm is usually available only in black-
and-white.
The opportunities for scholars can be greatly
improved, however, if the objects of interest are
digitised. There will always be specialists, of
course, with real needs to consult objects in their
original form, but most scholars will usually be
satisfied with digital copies. Digitised collections,
moreover, are accessible not only by the rare
documents' traditional scholarly audience, but by a
much wider range of people - a point that will be
appreciated by the funders of digitisation pro-
grammes.
The first pilot CD-ROM in the UNESCO pro-
gramme, published in 1993, contains 110 images
presenting over 150 of the more precious items
from the National Library's Manuscript and Old
Printed Books Department, together with access
software enabling database search and some very
basic image manipulation. The images were
produced as high-quality, 6 x 9cm colour slides,
scanned on rotation laser scanners, and stored in
MS-Windows BMP format. At the time, the
production of this disc was considered to be more
of
a
public relations exercise than any kind of
technological marvel, but it was popular in schools
and certainly contributed to wider knowledge of
our cultural heritage.
Our next goal was to use similar technology and
access tools to publish an entire manuscript on
CD-ROM, where the page-level characteristics of
the document would be richly indexed by experts,
and the results of searches displayable as page
images. We produced two such discs in 1995,
marking a turning point in our thinking: previ-
ously, we had dabbled in digitisation activity;
subsequently, we were to develop a complex
digitisation programme.
The image as a compression of
reality
The result of our digitisation programme is the
production of images of certain objects, the objects
in this case being old manuscripts. Immediately,
we were concerned with the quality of those digital
images, which led us to consider questions about
the nature of the relationship between the images
and the original documents on which they are
based. In our project group, early opinion was
divided: should the images be considered simply as
facsimiles of
the
originals (and thus perhaps as
effective replacements for the originals), or rather
44
—
VINE 107
To continue reading
Request your trial