"An Automated World Wide Web Search Tool for Papers and Watermarks: The Archive of Papers and Watermarks in Greek Manuscripts"

Robert W. Allison (Bates College, Lewiston, Maine)

Peruse the Archive of Papers and Watermarks in Greek Manuscripts

The Watermark Archive is an automated, World Wide Web based search tool and medium for publication of watermarks and papers occurring in Greek manuscripts. It evolved out of a project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities for cataloging the manuscript library of Philotheou Monastery on Mount Athos. (Mount Athos is the millennium-old monastic republic, today is a protectorate of Greece, which is famous among other things for its many ancient manuscript libraries.) The original intent was to use the World Wide Web for preliminary publication of selected results of this project while it was still in progress, among them the archive of Dylux prints of watermarks in these manuscripts.

Visit the Philotheou Project WWW site

In the course of this project, it quickly became evident that the World Wide Web was a medium better suited to this kind of research and to publication of watermarks than traditional printed catalogs. Why? This is a list of some of the things you can do with the Watermark Archive:

The World Wide Web enables you, from anywhere in the world and working on any kind of computer, to

1. Read paper descriptions and communicate readily with the author for clarification

   View a sample paper description Notice that the paper description provides you with link(s) to the watermark and/or countermark image(s)

2. See images of watermarks

   NOTE: Most browsers, including Netscape, convert images scanned at 400 dpi to 72 dpi for screen viewing, but are not smart enough to compensate by reducing the image size. For viewing jpeg images, therefore, you should set your browser's preferences to launch a helper application like JPEGView (for Macs) obtainable from any ftp site for Macs (like info-mac) or LView Pro (for PCs).

   View a sample watermark image from a 14th century paper (in Athos, Philotheou Monastery codex 5, paper type 2a)

3. Search for papers by key words in the paper descriptions using the Watermark Archive's automated search form

   Key words can be watermark names; physical features of paper; and names of scribes, cities, printers or book production centers associated with the paper and occurring in the descriptions. Thus the description is accessible from many more indices than with traditional watermark catalogs.

   View the Search Form (currently a non-functional mockup, but the live form will go on line sometime before the Conference, so keep watching)
   

   View the Instructions for Searching the Watermark Archive

4. Publish descriptions of newly found papers and images of their watermarks on the Watermark Archive using the form for submission of paper descriptions

   View the Introduction to the Paper Descriptions Database

5. Print up the form for submission of paper descriptions to use as a template for paper descriptions in your own field work

6. Print up watermark images from the Watermark Archive at the original size for comparison with your own watermark tracings from other sources

7. View two or more watermarks on the screen simultaneously for comparison

8. Receive as part of your search results references to publications of papers and watermark images scattered in scholarly journals (based on watermark designs) from the Bibliographical Database.

   This capability is to be included in the eventual functions of the Watermark Archive, but is not yet fully developed.

In addition, scholars familiar with full feature graphics programs can

1. Experiment with overlaying one watermark image upon another

2. Enhance watermark images like dylux images by reducing the visual impact of writing on the page or increasing the contrast between the paper and the watermark

   Read about image enhancement in the Watermark Archive

This paper will expand upon some of the above features of the World Wide Web based Watermark Archive, outlining how the Watermark Archive works, and how it meets the needs of contemporary scholars who work with later medieval manuscripts written on paper. Since it is scheduled for the last day of the conference, this presentation will reflect on and communicate ideas of conference participants who have perused the Watermark Archive in advance, and respond to questions they have raised.

Each page of the Watermark Archive invites response and provides the means to do so. Participants in the conference are invited to peruse the Watermark Archive before the conference and respond with questions and/or suggestions that might be addressed at the conference. A number of persons have already responded, including some who brought this conference to my attention. Some have seen in this project possibilities that extend well beyond the original purposes of this Watermark Archive, with its particular focus on papers and watermarks in Greek manuscripts. Some of the general questions that they have raised which will be of interest to participants in this conference include:

1. Whether and how this model and the principles on which it is based might be adopted for more universal use in historical research based on paper

2. Whether it is feasible to think that we might have a central search mechanism that could search a variety of archives like this one, archives served from institutions all over the world

3. What conventions of description might be required to make it work, and how would they be worked out

For my own purposes, discussion of these questions would be useful to enable me to anticipate future directions of development in World Wide Web watermark archives, and to be able make adjustments in this project while it is still in its formative stage.

Participants in the Conference who cannot peruse the Watermark Archive in advance will be able to view it and try it out in the Exhibition Area at times to be announced throughout the four days of the Conference. Joining me at the conference will be Jim Hart, Bates College Information Services, who developed the functionality of the archive, and who will be able to answer questions of more technical nature. We look forward to this opportunity for meeting and exchange of ideas.