Current Project

 

Full text database of early modern texts on philosophy

 

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A digitization-project of the

 

European Society for Early Modern Philosophy/

Europäische Gesellschaft für frühneuzeitliche Philosophie e.V.

 

 

The goal of this ESEMP-project is the digitization and subsequent internet-presentation of early modern texts on philosophy, which haven’t been reprinted yet and thus are hardly available, to make these works accessible for research. In this schedule the necessary work procedures are to be described briefly.

 

 

1. Investigation

 

The basic resource for this procedure is the Bibliographia philosophica vetus of Wilhelm Risse. Since this work is extensively, but by any means not completely and unfortunately also not free of errors, the search will be supplemented by other bibliographies, above all by an intensive search in the national and international library catalogues. Based on the topical partitioning of the Bibliographia philosophica vetus the different areas of philosophy will be successively worked on. First all relevant texts will be seized with all verifiable different editions. Afterwards their accessibility in German and (if necessary) in international libraries will be determined. Texts which have already been reprinted will not be digitized. If possible, the first editions of the early modern texts shall be used for the digitization. (Opera-editions are a special case.) This first procedure has already been finished in the area of metaphysics; right now we are working on the doxoscopia.

 

 

2. Contacting the relevant libraries

 

Based on the experiences of the search process on the metaphysics-area a list of libraries has been compiled, which are in possession of an important number of early modern works. The ESEMP has contacted these libraries and strives to make them cooperative partners. So far about thirty libraries and archives of different sizes have been contacted; more than twenty of them have already signalized their willingness for cooperation. – The question, which books from which libraries will be used for digitization will be answered, when all contacted libraries have sent their answers. That is necessary because several books have been found in various libraries. All participating libraries will be informed as soon as possible.

 

 

3. The production of microfilms

 

Some libraries already possess microfilms of relevant books; in that cases we will try to use these films for the process of digitization. If there have no films been produced yet, the ESEMP will order the production in the respective library. The costs will be paid by the ESEMP as well. If a library does not have the technical opportunity to produce microfilms, then this procedure could be made in another library in the vicinity or in the library of the University of Münster. In this way two goals should be achieved: (1.) The simultaneous production of microfilms in several libraries can be dispatched more quickly as only in one library. (2.) This method makes it possible to leave large parts of the original books in their home-library and thus to minimize the risk of physical damages. If an interlending is necessary, all possibilities of insurance coverage will be taken into consideration (in accordance with each library). The inviolacy of the valuable centuries-old books has the highest priority within the digitization-project.

 

 

4. Digitization of the microfilms in Hagen

 

For the process of digitization scanners for APS-films will be purchased in Hagen. Therefore a foregoing  production of the microfilms would be useful. The use of photocopies (DIN A4) should be avoided as often as possible. The single pages will be recorded as graphic-files; the format for the internet-presentation, i.e. JPEG or PDF, has to be discussed later on.

 

 

5. Preparation of copies on CD-ROM

 

Of each digital document two copies will be produced and saved on CD-ROM. One of these copies will be given to the library (for free), which the original text comes from; the second copy will be kept in Hagen as backup.

 

 

6. Presentation on the internet

 

After the process of digitization each text will be categorised, so that it can be found by a tracing service. Therefore the usual searching categories will be available (author, title, year and place of publication, paroles etc.). The digitized texts will be available through the online portal of the ESEMP as well as through the online catalogue of the library of the FernUniversität in Hagen, which will be involved as a cooperative institution. The question whether all presented documents will contain a new introduction or a foreword or not is discussed at present. Each text will contain an explicit reference to its home-library (incl. it’s complete signature). (Also all cooperative libraries will be mentioned namely as partners of the ESEMP on the homepage of the society.)

 

 

7. Maintenance, expansion etc.

 

The internet-presentation will be started as soon as a representative number of digitized documents (approx. 50+) has been produced and all technical assumptions have been managed. It’s a prior intention of the ESEMP to make the internet presentation as reliable as possible, so that the references to each document can be considered as quotable. An expansion of the data base, i.e. by adding bibliographies on the authors, is also one of the current themes of discussion. To offer the access to a large number of documents as soon as possible, national libraries will be considered primarily. Later on the unavoidable gaps will be filled by using the holdings of international libraries.

 

 

8. Aim

 

Spirit and purpose of this project is a non-profit allocation of early modern texts on philosophy for various interest groups. Compared with the total amount of such documents in European libraries the number of reprinted and easy accessible texts seems quite small. Because of this there are still several desiderates in the research field according the early modern age, which we hope to fill with our project. Finally is to say, that the digitally capturing of early modern texts on philosophy is a wide-scaled project; its ending cannot be sized up at the present moment. The main goal of the project is the most extensive presentation of hardly accessible and rare works  in order to give a new impetus to the researches on the early modern age, especially on the early modern philosophy.