Titles | Selection criteria
This project focuses on digitising printed materials from the special collections. Because of OCR, the material is made available in full-text, creating new possibilities for innovative research. Most of the titles of these printed works are listed in STCN.
Selection criteria
Not only was the period between 1781 and 1800 very interesting from a Dutch historic standpoint, the books are also very suitable for digitisation as regards to their typography. The point in time when books were no longer printed in Gothic typeface but in Roman typeface lies roughly in the final quarter of the seventeenth century for the Netherlands. In the eighteenth century, the ‘modern’ (Roman) type gradually became more predominant. Material printed in Roman is much more suitable for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) than the Gothic material. This is why material printed in the Netherlands in the eighteenth century was selected for this project.
Period
Within the eighteenth century, the project limits itself to the period 1781-1800 for the time being. The change to Roman script was as good as completed by then. Furthermore, this period is interesting in terms of politics, science and literature: it was the time of the French Revolution, Enlightenment was at its peak, and the Industrial Revolution was close at hand.
Categories
The in the STCN caterogised books consist for a third of governmental publications, academic publications (mainly in Latin) and occassional poems. The interest in these categories is normally not very large. The remaining part, the so called regular works, consist of historical, political, theological, and literary works. This is where this project concentrates on. The majority of the searches by scientist in the STCN is focused on these works.
Language
The emphasis lies on 'Dutch material', in other words, printed in the Netherlands or treating of the Netherlands. The Dutch language cannot be employed as a strict selection criterion. Before 1800, Dutch language borders looked quite different than today. Academia was internationally oriented. The standard Dutch language that was being developed was not the language used in universities (Latin), court or by diplomats (French). That is why the project includes both Dutch and French materials.