SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

January 13, 2014 by Gary Price

Mellon Foundation Awards UC Riverside $405,000 to Develop Software For English Short Title Catalogue

January 13, 2014 by Gary Price

From the University of California Riverside:

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded UC Riverside $405,000 to design new software that will allow scholars from around the world to help edit and curate the English Short Title Catalog, a searchable database of every known publication in the English-speaking world from the birth of the printing press in 1473 to 1800.
The foundation previously awarded UCR’s Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) $48,500 to develop a plan to help curate the expanding database and simplify how researchers harvest information from it.
The new grant continues that effort by funding the development of software that will enable scholars to add information about individual publications that could be useful to other researchers, such as the cost of a publication when it was printed or which copies in which libraries in Europe or North America might have notes written in margins, said Brian Geiger, Director of the CSBR.
The English Short-Title Catalog (ESTC) lists more than 500,000 items, including books, handbills, fliers, pamphlets and warrants. The catalog is a joint effort of the CBSR, the British Library and the American Antiquarian Society and is widely regarded as the single most authoritative source for the identification of early modern editions.
It is freely available for searching at http://estc.bl.uk.
“This is one of the first projects in which people can edit and curate established data in a structured way,” Geiger said of the effort to expand the usefulness of the database. “Part of the digital humanities trend is to allow researchers to interact with data in new ways.”
The new software will be cutting edge for digital humanities research in its ability to link data previously not connected in the English Short Title Catalog, such as authors for whom little information is available in a particular entry, Geiger said. A researcher using the catalog might have information that establishes relationships between other works or people in the catalog, for example.
“This will give us a better sense of the people involved in printing and associated with it before 1800,” he said.
“It will help people interested in the history of the printing of literature or understanding daily life in the English-speaking world before 1800.”
For example, a researcher studying popular forms of entertainment in the 1750s would find useful a database that includes how much books cost or which ones exist in greater quantities in libraries today, he said.
[Our emphasis] Approval from ESTC staff will be required for changes suggested to core catalog data, which must remain intact for use by librarians, Geiger said. The new software will allow additional information provided by researchers to be recorded in different data fields, with safeguards designed to prevent errors.
In a related project, the center has examined metadata for about 50,000 titles in the Google Books digitized archive. CBSR and Eastern Connecticut State University received a $50,000 grant from Google in 2010 to improve descriptions of books published before 1801, including the printer and year of publication, a physical description of the book, where copies of the originals are located, and general notes. Such information is critical for scholars, Geiger said, and is too often missing from the Google Books database.

See Also: Other Projects From the UCR Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR)

  • California Newspaper Project
  • California Digital Newspaper Collection
  • Catálogo Colectivo de Impresos Latinoamericanos Hasta 1851
  • California Newspaper Microfilm Archive

Filed under: Awards, Data Files, Funding, Libraries, News

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

Deepfakes are Becoming a Cottage Industry; STM US Annual Conference 2023 to Take Place in DC (April 26-27);...

Columbia: A Judge Just Used ChatGPT to Make a Court Decision (via VICE) Coming Soon: STM US Annual Conference 2023 to Take Place in DC (April 26-27) FCC Announces Over ...

New Journal Article: "Sustainability 3.0 in Libraries: A Challenge for Management"

The article linked below was published today (February 3, 2023). Title Sustainability 3.0 in Libraries: A Challenge for Management Author Alice Keller University Library Basel, University of Basel,  Switzerland Source ...

U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Nobel Foundation to Hold Nobel Prize Summit on Countering Misinformation and Building...

From a National Academies Announcement: The Nobel Prize Summit Truth, Trust and Hope will bring together Nobel Prize laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders for a global dialogue on how to stop ...

With Support From the Arcadia Fund, MIT Press Announces New Initiative to Flip Existing Subscription-Based Journals to a...

From a MIT Press Announcement:  In keeping with its mission and longstanding commitment to increase access to scholarship, the MIT Press is pleased to announce shift+OPEN. This new initiative is designed ...

A New EPUB Reader For E-Books From the Library of Congress Open Access Books Collection 

From a Library of Congress Blog Post: The Open Access Books Collection on loc.gov includes approximately 6,000 contemporary open access e-books covering a wide range of subjects, including history, music, poetry, technology, and works ...

Panel Discussion Video Recording: "Internet Freedom: Information Communication, Accessibility and Archiving"

The panel discussion video recording embedded below from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) was recorded on February 1, 2023.  Description This is a discussion on censorship-resistance, web archiving and ensuring ...

RLUK Releases Community-Driven Toolkit for the Development and Delivery of Virtual Reading Rooms (VRRs)

From RLUK (Research Libraries UK): The Virtual Reading Rooms (VRRs) Toolkit is a resource for all collection-holding institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, which are interested in setting up a VRR consultation ...

Microsoft Bing to Rely on GPT-4, ChatGPT Mobile App Planned, Rumours Say; Senator Calls on Apple and Google...

Microsoft Bing to Rely on GPT-4, ChatGPT Mobile App Planned, Rumours Say (via The Decoder) & Microsoft Teams gets an AI upgrade with OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 (via The Decoder) Resources ...

Library of Congress Opens New Web Archive Collection Documenting Protests Against Racism & Learn About LC's Black History...

From the Library of Congress (Full Text of Announcement): A new web archive collection from the Library of Congress documents the civil unrest sparked by the police murder of George ...

AI: arXiv Announces New Policy on ChatGPT and Similar Tools

From an arXiv Blog Post: The recent release of AI technology that generates new text has raised serious questions among the research community. For one, “Can ChatGPT be named an ...

ResearchGate and De Gruyter Announce a New Content Syndication Partnership

From a Joint Statement (via De Gruyter): ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and De Gruyter, an independent academic publisher, have today announced a content syndication partnership that will see ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.