Outline of the Project
Starting point
he 25 published volumes did not even represent two thirds of the whole collection. Moreover, some of these records had been inappropriately catalogued. One third of the watermark collection - about 37.000 records - had not yet been printed. Financed by the foundation "Stiftung Kulturgut des Landes Baden-Württemberg" about 20.000 of them have been digitally processed and published in the internet (www.piccard-online.de). The remaining 17.000 records were added as supplements to the already published volumes of watermarks.
Aim of the project
he new project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), aims at digitally processing the complete watermark collection - including the printed as well as the unpublished items and at publishing it on the internet to make them accessible to a wider public. In practical terms this means categorising and classifying about 75.000 records. The classification mainly follows the existing classification scheme of the printed publications. This procedure ensures the identification of the already published records by their former name and signature. In any case, it is necessary to subdivide the existing classification scheme in order to meet the demands of digital presentation.
The database will offer a wide range of options for navigation and search. A direct internet link between the "Piccard" collection and the Vienna collection Watermarks of the Middle Ages ("Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters") WZMA will be established in the course of the project (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/ksbm/wz/wzma2.htm). Additionally, the database will provide the opportunity to extend the "Piccard" collection by interlinking it with other watermark collections like the WZMA.
Optimising the online presentation
he existing internet application will be optimised in its programming as well as in its design. The range of performance will be extended as follows:
- The search for watermarks of a certain period will be offered.
- The presentation will offer an overview of the main classes of watermarks and its subclasses including the amount of records of each class or subclass.
- The first item of each main class will be linked to an introduction to the respective type of watermark.
- The field "remarks on content" will contain cross-references to other collections of watermarks (at present mainly to the WZMA collection "Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters" - Watermarks of the Middle Ages) - including a link to the respective item.
- In order to optimise the image-based search three parameters of a watermark must be observed:
The first parameter is to measure the distance between the watermark and the chainlines of the underlying mesh.
Second, to measure the height and the width of the watermark.
Third, three more parameters can be taken from
a) unusually complex designs and
b) those groups of watermarks which contain numerous records of a single type of watermark.
Therefore it is neccessary to set up additional search facilities, so that the user is able to search for watermarks with the above-mentioned parameters by reference to information in the database.
- A tool for an automatic measuring of watermarks has been developed in Vienna, which at the same time corrects rotated designs of watermarks.
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Example for the reinversion of a watermark, group "Bell", No. 40103
(Please click on the image for an enlarged view!) |
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