A Collaboration between the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John's University and the Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
to the HMML homepage
January 2000. Stephen E. Hayes, formerly scholarly editor of the In Principio Incipit Index of Latin Texts, will oversee the creation of records at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.
November 1999. From the MARC Initiative: Announcing the availability of a draft text for a new set of manuscript cataloging standards, entitled DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGING OF ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE, AND EARLY-MODERN MANUSCRIPTS. More information...
October 1999. The European MASTER project conducted a meeting in Prague in September, 1999, to present a preliminary draft of the SGML encoding standard for manuscript catalog descriptions (the MASTER DTD). Members of the MASTER team also demonstrated three customized software products that can be used to make the encoding process faster and easier.
The TEI Manuscript Description Working Group met in Berkeley, California, in October, 1999, to assess the MASTER DTD and to suggest improvements. Peter Robinson and Lou Burnard have revised and updated the MASTER web pages to reflect the results of these meetings. See, in particular, the "gentle introduction" to the DTD, intended for manuscript specialists who may not be familiar with electronic mark-up languages: Gentle Introduction
What is EAMMS?
Electronic Access to Medieval Manuscripts is a three-year project to develop guidelines for encoding and storing catalog descriptions of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in electronic form. The project receives funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is affiliated with another Mellon-funded project, the Digital Scriptorium. The goal of EAMMS is:
Why is EAMMS necessary?
The project seeks to exploit recent technological developments to allow quicker and more comprehensive access to information about manuscripts. Electronic versions of manuscript catalog records offer several significant advantages over printed editions: they allow remote access, can be linked to digitalized images and transcriptions of text, and can be searched more quickly and with less effort than printed volumes.
Will EAMMS be putting manuscripts on the web?
No. The end result of EAMMS will be a template for encoding descriptions of manuscripts, and suggestions for composing electronic finding aids for manuscript repositories. Individual institutions may choose to encode images and texts from the items in their collections and link this data to information about the manuscript source.
How will EAMMS develop the template?
The project has assembled an international team of experts in manuscript studies and library and information science to examine current manuscript cataloging practice, and to identify the information appropriate to describing and indexing manuscripts. The template will permit encoding of descriptions in any level of detail desired by the cataloger, from a simple description containing the basic elements required for the identification of a manuscript, to a full, scholarly catalog record.
What kind of encoding will EAMMS use in the template?
The project is exploring encoding in two formats:
Read more about the MARC Initiative.
Read more about the SGML Initiative.
How will EAMMS test the template?
Under the direction of the Vatican Film Library, a MARC development team will review existing tags and protocols and recommend modifications in the MARC format and cataloging conventions to accommodate the content model for the first-level and detailed manuscript catalog record. The library will also act as the test site for this model. The model will be presented for review to the Library of Congress and the Bibliographic Standards Committee of the Rare Books and Manuscript Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. The final version of the MARC record will be produced by June, 1999.
The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library is a test site for the SGML encoding template. The library will create a database of encoded records of its microfilm holdings and make this database accessible and searchable through the World Wide Web. The library will also offer the encoding template to interested institutions, and solicit reviews and recommendations for improvements. A beta version will be produced in 2000.
Project Director |
HMML Personnel General EAMMS inquiries to |
Vatican Film Library Personnel Frances Benham |
| Eric Hollas, OSB, Director Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Phone: 320-363-3514 Fax: 320-363-3222 ehollas@csbsju.edu |
Jack Marler Assistant Librarian Vatican Film Library Pius XII Memorial Library Phone: 314-977-3084 or -3090 Fax: 314-977-3108 marlerj@slu.edu |
| Theresa Vann Malta Study Center Curator Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Phone: 320-363-3993 Fax: 320-363-3222 tvann@csbsju.edu |
MARC Team Leader Gregory Allan Pass Assistant Librarian Vatican Film Library Pius XII Memorial Library Phone 314-977-3090 Fax: 314-977-3108 passga@slu.edu |
Members of the Descriptive Record Committee who attended the first meeting of Electronic Access to Medieval Manuscripts at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in December 1996: Back Row (Left to Right): Eric Hollas; Frances Benham; Lilian Randall; Dominique Poirel; Ambrogio Piazzoni; Wesley Stevens; Laurence Creider. Front Row (Left to Right): Melissa Conway; Richard Rouse; Theresa Vann; Merrilee Proffitt; Consuelo Dutschke; Hope Mayo, Initial Director; Rachel Stockdale; Jack Marler.
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library EAMMS Introduction | © Copyright 2000 by HMML
URL: http://www.csbsju.edu/hmml/eamms/index.html
maintained by HMML | Last Revised
February 28, 2007
