Happy Birthday, STCN!

Short-Title Catalogue Netherlands or STCN (www.kb.nl/stcn), is the online retrospective bibliography of books published between 1540-1800 in The Netherlands, and of Dutch books printed abroad. The project will be celebrating its completion on 25 June 2009.

Occasion for these wishes is the festive closure of the STCN-project at Leiden, today, 4 June, 2009, with an exhibition, Vreemdigheden en rariteyten; zeldzame boeken uit de Leidse collecties, set to illustrate the diversity of book production at Leiden. The contribution of Leiden imprints at University of Leiden to STCN is vast: 70.000 titles and 90.000 copies. But Leiden gained prominence around 1575, when the oldest still existing university of The Netherlands was founded.

In all, 170,000 (190,000) titles and 420,000 (500,000) copies have passed review. A total of 22 Dutch libraries and 2 libraries overseas, in London - holdings at BL and University of Londen, more precisely the Elzevier collection – have been receiving collaborators of the bureau of the STCN, who examined holdings.

Let’s recap. STCN kicked off in 1982. Phase 1 took 5 years, until 1987, and knew the input of 6 collaborators. Result was the description of all printed books before 1701 at the Royal Library in The Hague (KB Den Haag).

1988 marked the beginning of a phase 2, which was finalized in March 1997. All books in libraries in Amsterdam and Leiden were scrutinized. More collaborators got involved. In 1995, the last 100 years 1701-1800 were included, and the bureau got a foothold at KB Den Haag.

Phase 3, devoted to the period 1701-1800, saw completion in 2000, but was extended by 2 years. In 2002, at the end of phase 3, the database counted 123,000 entries.

For celebrations, and for another reason we’re glad to look extra muros.

In 1800, no “The Netherlands”, no “Belgium” existed. Willem I reunited what had been “Belgicum”, “Flandres”, “Paesi Bassi”, “Het Nederland” or “De Nederlanden”, as seen from Burgundy’s seat in France in the 15^th century and from Madrid the next.

Despite the Treaty of Münster in 1648, which ended a battle for political and religion differentiation, and which led to the 17 provinces of “Olanda” in the North, and the Spanish-Austrian provinces in the South, a mental separation took longer to take effect.

France later reunited les départments Belgiques, and so did Willem I. According to Hugo De Schepper, a North-South fissure did happen in Willem’s assemblée, due to the seating system.

So STCN has a sibling for Dutch editions printed in Belgium: STCV, Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen.

STCV is younger: born in 2000, with a cradle at University of Antwerp and use of the university’s software. There's the input of 2 collaborators, and a description of editions in Dutch printed in Flanders in 1601-1700, at first not opting to ruffle the feathers of Belgica Typographica (BT). The approach slightly deviates from that of STCN.

Phase 1 lasted until 2003, and resulted in 6226 seen copies and 4850 entries. Phase 2 included other languages, and editions printed before 1601. Flemish government support –culture and education are regionalized in Belgium- was garnered along the way.

Today, Diederik Lanoye, STCV’s collaborator, is working at the Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience in Antwerp to cover lacunae for the 17^th century.

In the course of this year, STCV will be incorporated in the association of 6 Flemish heritage libraries or Erfgoedbibliotheken Vlaanderen. The bureau hopes to examine 2,400 copies per annum. Presently, the counter reached 10,000 entries.

2 New Portals for Bibliophily and Book History: Part 2

They're not twittering, but two Belgian bibliophile societies with seats at Antwerp and Brussels are sounding new drums online. And the portal for book history in the Dutch-speaking part of the country became fresh-faced as well.

Part II
Contrary to Brussels, the bibliophiles at Antwerp have not opted for an individual portal. Issued from the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) northern part of this country, there is now 1 single portal for news about rare books: Boekgeschiedenis.be.

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Boekgeschiedenis.be is the joint portal (and more) for Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis (society for book historians in Flanders) and Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen, bibliophile society at Antwerp, with its seat at the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

Plenty of book historians of the Werkgroep being members of the Antwerpse Bibliofielen, and many of them sitting on the editorial board of De Gulden Passer, journal of the Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen, seem to be the main reasons behind this.

Members of both respectively can access the pages related to their society. Both already worked with memberships, and retain access to certain pages as a privilege for members. New visitors can easily become new members.

Boekgeschiedenis.be is available in Dutch only. It is work in progress, but the bonus lies in centralized access via Boekgeschiedenis.be to both De Gulden Passer, with future promises of digitization, and Kroniek van het gedrukte boek in de Nederlanden, searchable book reviews of books on books.
De Gulden Passer has turned into the journal of book history available from Flanders. Published as a yearbook, it will soon accelerate pace, and publish 2 issues a year.

Kroniek van het gedrukte boek in de Nederlanden is the chronicle of book reviews that since 1971 has been appearing in Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique = Archief- en bibliotheekwezen in België, paper journal edited at the Royal Library of Belgium.

In 2002, Johan Hanselaer performed the herculean task of bringing all book reviews online separately, known simply as "de Kroniek". Dutch only, and search options still limited, but this is an easy tool for anyone looking for recent literature or studies about the subject of the book.

2 New Portals for Bibliophily and Book History: Part I

They're not twittering, but two Belgian bibliophile societies with seats at Antwerp and Brussels are sounding new drums online. And the portal for book history in the Dutch-speaking part of the country became fresh-faced as well.

Part I

The Société royale des bibliophiles et iconophiles de Belgique (SRBIB) presented its new website, Bibliobel.be, officially to its members on 1 April 2009. In 3 languages: French, Dutch and English. Access for members and non-members alike, but members have a closed section related to activities.
The journal of the SRBIB is called Le livre et l'estampe. For all 162 issues that have appeared between 1954 and 2004, the website provides indices on subject and author in printable documents. No hyperlinks; full text for the journal is not digitized, and remains a privilege to subscribers and institutional members.
The occasional visitor can however glean through the list of catalogues and publications that this society has published, and can easily order the items that are still available.

The SRBIB is looking forward to its 100th anniversary in 2010, and is preparing a sumptuous exhibition with treasures by its members at the Royal Library at Brussels called Belgica nostra.
More on that event later.

Albertine disparue: digitization at Belgium's National Library

KBR, Belgium's National Library or Royal Library Albert I, is just about to present to the public its portal for access to its digitized holdings. The project is called Belgica and can be accessed here, under Belgica.kbr.be. Exactly 40 years after the inauguration of the new library premises on Kunstberg/Mont des Arts in Brussels.

On Thursday 5 March 2009, at 18 pm, the Royal Library will highlight this evolution in an exhibition by invitation called Veertig jaar verzamelen. Van de Albertina tot Belgica. Quarante années d'acquisitions. De l'Albertine à Belgica (Forty Years of Collecting. From Albertina to Belgica) (Nassau Chapel).

In comparison to its vast holdings, these beginnings are modest. But the present contents of the portal do show the variety of the institution's holdings: from manuscripts to rare books, reference works and newspapers, music, coins and medals, over maps and plans, prints, etchings, and drawings. Each section lists a number of works that have been made available.

Under Reference works so far we find several of the library's own reference catalogues to the library's manuscripts. The manuscript holdings themselves number around 25,000-30,000. In Reference, the project aims to digitize Belgicana, works pertaining to Belgium and Belgian publications.

Belgica also establishes ties to a larger-scale digitization project for newspapers that was started in 2004 and that involves collaboration between a number of public institutions. Belgica has two searchable newspapers available today: L'Avenir de Luxembourg and L'Indépendance Belge. Other digitized newspapers can be accessed when visiting the library in person.

We hope to come back to this project and make it a first instalment in a series on digitization of rare books and manuscripts around the country today.

"The Jewish Book in a Christian World": International Conference at Antwerp (25-27 June, 2008)

With the recently inaugurated exhibition "Hebraica veritas: Sprak God Hebreeuws? (did God Speak Hebrew, see our April 25, 2008 post)" up and running until August 17, 2008, the Plantin-Moretus Museum (MPM) is about to close its Spring season festively with the international conference "The Jewish Book in a Christian World" (25-27 June, 2008).

Apart from MPM and the University of Antwerp's IJS (Institute of Jewish Studies), co-organizers are the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), and the Universitair Centrum Sint-Ignatius at Antwerp (UCSIA).

Keynote lecturer at 5 pm on Wednesday at the City Hall of Antwerp is Princeton professor of Renaissance history and the history of scholarship, Anthony Grafton. Grafton's first book was an intellectual biography of Joseph Scaliger. He's been a frequent visitor at the University of Leiden, where he received an honorary doctorate in 2006, and where he has found colleagues to edit Scaliger's collected letters. The University of Leiden Library has a Scaliger Institute to promote research of its holdings.

This blogger has some interesting links in connection with Grafton's latest book, Codex in Crisis. It's a bibliophile edition limited to 250 copies based on an article from the New Yorker in which Grafton expresses to what extend some reserve is due about digitization.

On Thursday June 26, 2008, two sessions will be held at this conference: "The Printing of the Hebrew Bible and Judaica in Antwerp and the Low Countries" (morning) and "Christian Publishers and Readers of Hebrew Literature (afternoon). Location is the Print Room at the Plantin-Moretus Museum (morning) and University of Antwerp's Hof van Liere (afternoon).

A morning session on Friday June 27, 2008 will close the conference: "The Impact of Print on Jewish Culture." Location that day is the University of Antwerp's Hof van Liere. The conference will be held entirely in English. Admission is free, but registration is mandatory.

Illustration: cover of the exhibition catalogue of Hebraica veritas. Book design of the catalogue by Louis van den Eede, who drew the front cover's design by hand. Details: Hebraica veritas. Christoffel Plantijn en de Christelijke Hebraïsten. Catalogus bij de tentoonstelling: Hebraica veritas. Sprak God Hebreeuws? Antwerpen, Museum Plantin-Moretus/Prentenkabinet, 16 mei-17 augustus 2008. No ISBN. Inquiries should be made at the museum.

Inaugural Chair "Boek.be" at University of Antwerp (April 23, 2008)

Yesterday the Chair "Boek.be" was inaugurated at the University of Antwerp, with five speakers and a half-day conference around a chosen theme: "Publisher, bookstore and library in the digital world: partners or opponents?" Jef Maes of Boek.be signed on as organizer, and the conference was chaired by professor Pierre Delsaerdt.

Location: the renovated monastery of Grauwzusters, at Lange Sint-Annastraat, part of the university's city center campus.

The Chair is part of APUB, a course called Actuele problemen van de uitgeverij en boekhandel, that is part of the MA Informatie en Biliotheekwetenschap (IBW). The degree is undergoing a makeover to Master after Master. Book history and preservation are part of it as well.

The sponsoring by Boek.be, the Federation of Booksellers in Flanders, is a novelty, and a welcome one at that for the only university degree of its kind, and one that also partly serves as a crash course for professionals into aspects of this very industry.

The first speaker was Ivo Volman, who heads the Digital Libraries and Public Sector Information Unit of the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media. He presented Europeana, the European Digital Library or the digitization of Europe's museum, library, and archival holdings. We're in it, because of Google, he implied. Still, Volman holds the physical sensation of reading paper copies of books in high regard.

Christine de Mazières of the Syndicat national de l'édition (France) approached digitization from the perspective of publishers. France has at its National Library the project Gallica2, for the digitization of French books that are free of copyright. The portal now provides the possibility for publishers to reach the reader, in an experimental phase, with books under copyright, rendered accessible by e-providers (e-distributors).

Denis Zwirn is the CEO of Numilog or one of 2 or 3 e-providers in France today. In his view the chain between publishers and readers remains pretty stable. The implementation of e-book access lengthens the tail to get books to customers. Neither publishers nor booksellers should miss the train. Books and bookstores will stick around, but with the importance of e-providers on the increase.

Trudi Noordermeer formerly headed digitization projects at the National Library of the Netherlands, and is presently Head of the University of Antwerp Library. Digitization projects in libraries have undergone an evolution and are feeling the influence of 2.0 user-generated content. Unfortunately, they are also more sensitive to the challenges that remain in connection with digitization, such as funding and backup problems.

Lastly, Geert Joris as Director of Book.be, did not mince words when he concluded with a strong plea for e-book production. Old business models should be given the glove treatment, but new ones should be firmly embraced, as e-technology is here to stay. The music industry provides one of the most exciting models around. The book trade cannot carry national digitization projects alone. Governments should create momentum and provided the necessary financial means for the digitization of the national heritage.

The challenges in connection with digitization were shared by more than one speaker. In kind, they are technological (is digitization stable enough?), juridical (what about material under copyright?), fiscal (what is more crucial under VAT, carrier or content?), financial (who pays for providing e-books, more costly still than paper publishing?), and also related to content (what gets digitized, by whom, and how do you know when it is?). Here's what worrisome - that's a plateful. The challenges remain formidable, as no speaker ventured easily past the questions. They are bound to lead to new conferences.

But who cares not to heed the call of digitization? In times when kids think that something does not exist, unless they can google it, when people wait eight months for an e-reader, the conclusion that day was: we'd better. And fasten your seatbelts, too.