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FYI--The HRC Gutenberg Bible is scanned



Hello Everyone,
I've been asked to forward the following
announcement to the Listserve.

Thanks,
Bob Schmidt
Archives Listserve Coordinator
Miami University Archives
Oxford, Ohio 45056
513-529-6720
rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu
__________________________________

The Ransom Center's copy of the Gutenberg Bible
(c. 1450), one of only
forty-eight complete copies in the world, is about
to become much more
accessible to the public. Pairing cutting edge
technology from the
fifteenth century -- the Gutenberg Bible was the
first book produced
using moveable type -- and today's latest
technology, every page of the
Gutenberg Bible is soon to be photographed using
the latest in digital
technology. This is the first time this technology
will be used to
digitize a Gutenberg Bible in the United States.

This project will take place at the Ransom Center,
on the campus of The
University of Texas at Austin, during the week of
June 24, 2002. IImage
Retrieval, Inc. <http://www.iiri.com/> of
Carrollton, Texas, is allowing
the Ransom Center staff to use one of its Digibook
scanners, produced by
the French firm of i2S-Bookscanner, to capture
images of each of the
Gutenberg Bible's 1,200 pages. The scanner takes
less than five seconds
to process each page, and the Book Restorer
software produced by i2S
allows for correction of page curvature and
faithful reproduction of the
original colors in the book's beautiful
illuminated letters. The end
result will be 60,000,000,000 bytes (60 gigabytes)
of stored digital
images that will eventually be mounted on the
Center's Web site or
viewed by scholars working at the Ransom Center or
even in another
country.

Richard Oram, the Center's head librarian, notes,
"For the first time,
we will have high-definition images of all of the
pages in the Bible for
scholars to study. These will be of considerable
interest to faculty and
students in the history of the book and art
history. The digitization is
an ideal opportunity for us to make the
cornerstone of our rare books
collection more easily available for study, while
it benefits IImage
Retrieval, which will have an opportunity to try
out this recently
introduced product in actual operation. We are
grateful that we were
able to work out this arrangement with the firm."

Since the large two-volume book is normally on
permanent display and
must be accompanied by a guard whenever it is
removed from its secure
case, it has been difficult for scholars to access
and for the public to
see. Now, users will be able to look at highly
detailed digital blowups
of the illuminated letters. In addition, the
images captured by the i2S
Digibook will be used in a new interactive display
featuring the
Gutenberg Bible in the renovated Ransom Center
lobby. More information
about the Gutenberg Bible may be found on the
Center's Web site, at The
Gutenberg Bible at the Ransom Center
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/.

One of the world's finest cultural archives, the
Ransom Center houses 30
million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare
books, 5 million
photographs, and over 100,000 works of art.
Highlights include the
Gutenberg Bible (c. 1450), the world's first
photograph (c. 1826),
important paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego
Rivera, and major
manuscript collections of James Joyce, Ernest
Hemingway, T.S. Eliot,
D.H. Lawrence, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and
Tennessee Williams to name but a few. The Center
is used extensively for research by scholars from
around the world and presents numerous exhibitions
and events each year
showcasing its collections. Exhibitions and events
are free and open to
the public.

Date: June 19, 2002  For immediate release
Photographs available
Contact: Sheree Scarborough Phone: 512.232.3670
Fax: 512.232.5408
Email: info@hrc.utexas.edu
Website: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>