§ 1 Europeana Regia is a project to digitise 874 rare and precious manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.[1] The project is supported by the European Commission and involves five libraries located in four European countries;[2] it aims to digitise and present to the public three major collections of royal manuscripts, currently dispersed: the Biblioteca Carolina (eighth and ninth centuries), the Library of Charles V and family (fourteenth century) and the Library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries). The digital manuscripts will be fully accessible on the websites of the partner libraries, on the European digital library Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) and on a specific website (http://www.europeanaregia.eu/).
§ 2 During the project, a qualitative study was conducted by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) to determine and rank the expectations and needs of the current and potential users of medieval manuscripts online. Focus groups were organised in three of the project’s partner libraries from May to November 2010: the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Biblioteca Històrica de la Universitat de València (BHUV) and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België/Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (KBR). Each focus group was dedicated to one of the user categories primarily targeted in the project:
§ 3 The French part of the study was commissioned from the company OUROUK whose findings served as the basis for writing the final report with the addition of the results of the Belgian and Spanish studies, led by staff at the BHUV and KBR with their own specific methods. The French study was conducted in two stages: 1) eight initial interviews, face to face or by telephone (90 minutes on average) destined in particular to draw up a guide for leading the focus groups; 2) three focus groups filmed (150 minutes on average) with the following populations respectively: 7 researchers, 4 teachers, 10 representatives from the interested general public. A total of sixty people were interviewed in three countries.
§ 4 A project to digitise rare collections from around the world arouses keen interest with the researchers and teachers interviewed.
§ 5 Easy access to a large collection of manuscripts, most of which are
difficult to consult (because of their great value and their state of preservation),
completely digitised in high definition, makes Europeana
Regia a fascinating
[3] project
keenly awaited by researchers in particular. The "researchers" focus group, for the French study, included
seven researchers in the following disciplines: medieval history, history of texts
(illuminated and liturgical manuscripts), art history and codicology. They highlight
the importance of being able to virtually reconstitute a collection that is spread
across different countries. They are interested on account of both ease of access
(the ability to consult different collections without having to move physically
between institutions) and the possibility to push the traditional conditions of
knowledge (i.e. libraries' physical space): to be able to make comparisons on screen,
to put manuscripts side by side, beyond institutionally and academically defined
collections and fields. We are often experts in a specific corpus.
Here we have an opportunity to extend our view, to observe other perspectives
;
Research by images could help with comparisons, with new
perspectives, difficult to do manually.
§ 6 For high school teachers, the digital mode allows various uses (in the
classroom by the teacher or at home by the student) and encourages group projects
which elicit ideas for discussion well beyond the classroom context: educational
projects with teachers of other disciplines or even with other schools in different
countries (It can allow students of European classes in
different countries to work together
). Educationally, a site like Europeana Regia helps students to look differently at the
internet and its uses: We can show the links that the internet
provides between analogical and digital.
It’s quite funny to
imagine high school kids looking at medieval manuscripts thanks to the
internet.
In return, the internet emphasises the notion of a common cultural
heritage at European level: This will enable us to get across the
notion of a common cultural heritage, especially in European classes.
§ 7 The sample of interested general public chosen for the French study
included people who visit exhibitions, museums and other cultural institutions more
or less regularly and who enjoy beautiful books. The type of people were deliberately
selected in socio-professional categories completely different from those of
traditional users of the French national heritage trust, with whom however they share
the same level of higher education. The interested general public focus group
included: 1 school librarian (aged 29), 2 business managers (53 and 55), 1 head of
digital publications (58), 1 publisher (49), 1 graphic designer (39), 1 scriptwriter
(59), 1 consultant (42), 1 student in communication (25), 1 writer (66). This
particular interested general public would only be interested in consulting medieval
manuscripts (non translated at that) and illuminated manuscripts from time to time,
most often through external events: an exhibition, a visit to an ancient library or
research for a hobby for example; some also said they wanted to help their children
and grandchildren in their schoolwork and stimulate their curiosity in art and
history. This mixed, fickle group is more difficult to attract and needs considerable
mediation to understand what it’s about: Who commissioned these
manuscripts, why were they written, what are they about?
The illuminated
manuscripts and the research possibilities are a strong incentive for this target
group: This project reminds me of that wonderful exhibition
(at
the BnF) Quand la peinture était dans les
livres (1993). I think that high quality images are the
main point of interest for a neophyte
; What will people be
able to understand if they don’t have the translation? What is the point of
leafing through manuscripts if not for the pictures? Comments are
essential.
They express the need not only to be able to understand what they see, but also to be
able to move around within a space. We must explore a corpus as we would visit an
exhibition or take a walk: It should be approached like an
exhibition: I must get the feeling that I will understand something, that I’m
going to be drawn into a different world
; If the site is
well done, it should make us want to wander round, to look at a
manuscript.
§ 8 Yet initial telephone interviews with two municipal librarians show a specific category of general public, distinct from that interviewed directly in the study: an "enthusiastic general public." These are mainly senior people, captivated by the manuscripts and the related disciplines (paleography, codicology and medieval calligraphy and iconography), but it also includes bibliophiles, genealogists, amateur historians or local scholars, working for personal reasons on a place, a region, a person, etc. For these reasons this category would no doubt use the Europeana Regia website, and seems much closer to the profile or regular users of sites like Gallica (http://gallica.bnf.fr/).[4]
§ 9 The minimum requests from researchers focus on the traditional
tools in library research: introductions to the corpus, catalogues and records.
First of all nothing must be removed from what can be obtained by library
consultation: image quality, the quality of records, etc. must remain intact. As
one researcher provocatively said: In a pinch, the website could
stop at manuscripts call numbers and high definition images (plus a few tools
to look at them). The rest is mere luxury.
§ 10 More precisely, researchers are hoping for scientific introductions to the project and the corpus, but also to areas of research (the texts, illuminated manuscripts, writings, codicology, etc.), plus a bibliography. The library catalogs where the corpus documents originate must be consultable, in general and from a given document. Finally, the bibliographic and catalog records should be as full as possible, giving details in particular of the incipit, the colophon and the ex-libris.
§ 11 The great majority of researchers would like the librarians’ cards
to be made available in image mode, as the transcriptions are too often marred by
mistakes. One researcher would also like a version in a format
that can be used digitally.
§ 12 For the illuminated manuscripts, they request a
very high level of description for the images, using a thesaurus,
indicating 1) what is shown; 2) the context into which the illuminated manuscript
is placed (exact place, environment, etc.); 3) its relation with the text. Spanish
academics however see great difficulty in reaching a standard description
here.
§ 13 In addition to these minimum requirements, researchers are
interested in any additional scientific information: scientific presentation of
the project and the corpuses; a bibliography pertaining to each corpus and
manuscript; a summary of the work done on each corpus and the manuscripts (origin
and progression of the document in time and space, production centers and
exchanges, manufacturing processes, etc.). This additional information could come
from other resource sites, which would require careful examination of the
interoperability and shared metadata with new partner sites (you have to harvest and be harvestable
).
§ 14 Finally, requests described as ideal
emerged:
a visual representation of the spatial organization of the manuscripts in the
kings’ libraries concerned, at different periods; or perhaps a map of the
production centers and their exchanges. These expectations express the wish for
new viewpoints of the manuscripts and the hope of detecting hitherto unseen
aspects: The view map would bring to light a new historical
awareness and would offer new avenues of research.
This implies that
digitising is likely to produce new ways of understanding these objects.
§ 15 Two principal requests transpired to allow the interested general public, and the teachers and their students to gain a greater understanding of a corpus such as that proposed in Europeana Regia: general introductions and targeted projects.
§ 16 First of all this corpus must provide the keys
for understanding.
In particular, considerable educational preparation is
expected, especially introductions to the following notions: the manuscript as an
object (different forms, how they were made); the periods covered; the
scriptoria
(implantation, organization, function); a
king’s library (layout, composition, how books were acquired); calligraphy;
illuminated manuscripts; authors (placed in a historical point of view to avoid
anachronisms with the modern idea of an author); types of text; paleography.
§ 17 For the general introductions, teachers and the interested general
public would like contents with different levels of
difficulty
: the first level should be short and simple, well illustrated,
referring to a consultation of the manuscripts, to which could be added a more
detailed text for more information,
with bibliographies,
webographies or filmographies. Teachers point out the risk of contents such as
this being designed exclusively for complex indexation, especially for the
illustrations, which would prevent their being looked up by a public of neophytes
who are not familiar with this vocabulary.
§ 18 The educational aspect does not have to include a presentation of
each manuscript. It could be restricted to pivotal works that are representative and of greatest interest for the general
public.
Two particular points of interest for a non-specialist public are
highlighted: illustrations (The possibility to search for
illustrations is a marvelous tool that would allow us to make the students work
on representations
) and the material aspect of the manuscripts (The public is fascinated by the form of the manuscripts, where
and how they were produced
). The public, and in particular the newly
retired generation, is increasingly interested in paleography.
§ 19 In addition to these general introductions, there is a need for a variety of access points to the contents: traditional,
original, or even amusing.
These different means must be visible on the
home page, which should not merely inform but call out,
arouse our curiosity
with considerable effort given to the
esthetics
to be pleasing to the eye. The importance of
these gateways
stems from the observation that the general
public and some high school teachers do not know what to look for a priori. So it is important to suggest programs,
selections, points of view, etc. The teachers are all the more insistent on these
points if the period is insufficiently or badly covered in the schools, especially
in France.[5] Although a desire to
"wander
" from one manuscript to another is expressed,
there is a fear of the unknown environment: Browsing must be
easy and well marked. We must get the impression of a finite ensemble, where we
will not get lost.
The freehand, intuitive progression also requires a
precise framework: progressing "on request
" in developments,
with access to additional information, etc.
§ 20 Finally, there is a request for interactive or fun multimedia activities: virtual exhibitions ("a king’s library," "how a manuscript is produced," "how a book came about"); discovery programs (pertaining in particular, and especially in France, to the disciplines exploring new school curricula: "Art, creation and culture"; "Art, myth and religion"; "Art, the State and power," etc.); analyses of images, or of pages of writing; brief video presentations of a subject by a researcher (calligraphy, paleography, codicology, etc.); readings of extracts from manuscripts in the original language with the translation at the same time.
§ 21 More generally, the editorial approach must resonate with the
current preoccupations of the target public: The antique
corpuses must be brought to life and must at any cost avoid remaining stuck in
their own time warp. This can be done by demonstrating the links and continuity
between the people living in that period and modern times.
Common situations and issues must be shown as being connected to
those of today.
These links must not be only in the mind, but also and
especially in the flesh: The relationship between the public and
the documents must be affective.
The copyists, authors and commissioners must be brought to
life.
It is essential to remove the academic distance which emphasises the
serious, solemn nature of a period, in order to also get across the
"trivial
" nature.
§ 22 For the researchers, the multilingual nature of the corpus raises the problem of linguistic equivalences and the different spellings of proper nouns, which could require management of the authority lists. The search engine is therefore expected to suggest words and expressions as letters are typed (predictive typing) and when it is complete (other possible spellings).
§ 23 Researchers would like to be able to search the incipit of the second and penultimate pages, the colophons and the ex-libris.
§ 24 To access the list of available works, the following indexes were suggested:
Imagine I was in the Charles V Library at such and such a time: what works would have been there?;
§ 25 The list of results must supply, at first sight and on one single
page, enough information to allow for an intelligent choice: A
good list of results must allow you to find the documents that are likely to
correspond to what we are looking for without clicking or tooltips.
The
list on Persée (http://www.persee.fr/) is given as an example. In particular, the
first page of the manuscript must be displayed in the list of results and you must
be able to enlarge it without exiting the list. The complete bibliographic record
of a document must be visible from the result, in a new window (rather than a
different screen). Above all, researchers want to limit having to switch between
the list of results, the bibliographic records and the actual document.
§ 26 As we have seen, the high school teachers and the interested
general public are keen on multiple entries to the texts and illuminated
manuscripts, through indexes and selected themes for documents, inspired in
particular by the curricula: Examples for using the database
should be provided.
Some examples of entries into the corpus using
documentary themes were suggested: "royal authority"; "chivalry"; "bestiary";
"recipes"; "medicine"; "everyday objects"; "trades"; "architecture"; "fashions";
"jewelry"; "furniture"; "tools"; "school books"; "translated manuscripts";
"calligraphy"; "glosses and annotations"; "one letter"; and, via indexes such as
those of the illuminated manuscripts database in the French Culture Ministry
(http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/): "kings and queens"; "authors"; "types of
texts"; "image themes"; "events"; "places." A search engine would be used more for
searching for illustrations (a character, an animal, or a place, etc.).
§ 27 Standards for this are much higher and more precise in the
researchers’ groups than in the other groups. They see this type of project as a
means to avoid having to actually go to the libraries where the works being
studied are hold, but also as a means to see elements that in situ consultation would not allow. One important point for the
researchers is that the pages must load very quickly (Google Books is given as an
example). Navigation between the list of results and the documents, and also
within each document, must be flexible and fluid: Viewing a
manuscript on screen must provide us with exactly the same opportunities as
when we are actually holding it in our hands.
§ 28 More precisely, to view and manipulate pages of a manuscript, researchers ask:
It’s fun the first time, but it soon becomes tedious); tables of contents with marked supplements if any; direct access to a given page via the list of folios; marking of noteworthy pages in the manuscript (requested by the teachers);
observe with great accuracy the material aspect of the document we are looking at: the grain of the page, the ink, the folds, etc.and to have very high quality images to incorporate into scientific articles.
§ 29 Among the tools allowing visitors to view the pages as closely as
possible, enlargement is considered essential
: the first
level of page enlargement must be fully contained in the screen view to see it as
a whole; it must be possible to zoom the whole page, which must be movable on the
screen; the zoom must be gradual, preferably guided by the
user
and not by imposed increments; a magnifying glass must be applicable
wherever you want on the page.
§ 30 Two other tools are listed as desirable but not
essential
:
§ 31 Finally, three tools were mentioned by French researchers only:
§ 32 Most of these tools to view and manipulate pages are considered
relevant to observe the manuscript as an object. Added to that, the material
aspect of the manuscript must be formally and accurately described with (numerous)
photographs taken by specialists in the field (only book-binding
specialists know what needs to be photographed and how. Photographers should be
provided with expert guidance
). A 3D view of the manuscripts, with the
possibility to rotate them in all directions and a permanently visible scale,
would also be of real interest.
§ 33 Four peripheral tools and services were mentioned in the interviews:
basket"), while the session is open (interested general public) or for a longer time (researchers and high school teachers). Additional tools for annotating or bookmarking, etc., were not mentioned;
§ 34 For the collaborative sections, researchers and high school teachers were asked if they would be willing to participate in adding to the site contents.
§ 35 Answers from the researchers depended somewhat on their country of
origin. The French researchers would be willing to point out a bibliographic or
webographic reference or a mistake in a record, pass on an off-print, etc., on
condition however that it is very simple, fluid and quick.
For example, a button on every page to call up a pop up
form
(cf. the "Notify a problem" link in Persée (http://www.persee.fr/), with the possibility of attaching a document). The Spanish researchers and
university professors are more open to working in collaboration, and mentioned in
particular the possibility of making their students take part in adding to the
contents, under the supervision of the experts: The
collaboration must be centralised. All the contributions to the website should
be approved by the researchers in charge of the project.
§ 36 The high school teachers would be interested in the idea of
contributing and see it taking two forms: passing on worksheets, or even teaching
sessions they have prepared in relation to a document or a theme; and passing on
work done by their students (it would be very stimulating and
encouraging for the students to be able to show their contributions to a site
such as this
). They recommend that the teaching resources available should
be indexed according to the relevant school levels (elementary school, junior high
school, high school). It could all be put together in a specific blog: It is useful to have access to both the Europeana Regia corpus and the related educational works.
§ 37 The study has confirmed the considerable interest of researchers and academics in this project, but has also pointed out their demanding standards. Compared to the existing offer on other sites, their requests are less concerned with new functionalities than on how well the tools perform, the speed of access and how exhaustive the information would be. All of these requests are based on their regular visits to other sites referred to positively or negatively during the discussions such as Persée, Gallica, e-codices (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/) etc.). Researchers are accustomed to working on the web and can therefore choose and compare what is on offer in the field of online manuscripts.
§ 38 For History, Arts and Applied Arts teachers in high schools, the project is seen as an excellent potential teaching aid, but it would require suggestions for courses, themed presentations, selections (noteworthy pages) and a considerable effort to provide mediation (translated passages, reading in the original language, video conferences by specialists, analyses of pages). It is important to encourage them to browse around, in and through a marked space. A few key works could be presented in great detail, perhaps interactively, and the rest of the digitised corpus could be part of a more general approach. The idea of being able to add value to the site, particularly by publishing work done by their students, was very attractive.
§ 39 Interest in the project is less marked in the interested general public, who would only consult medieval manuscripts and illuminated manuscripts from time to time, often motivated by family or cultural events. The illustrations are the main attraction for this public. However, because this category is mixed and fickle, it would not be relevant to offer them a specific section, as the proposal made to teachers should also be appropriate for them. Within the interested general public, however, there is one category very interested in the project, already identified among the users of cultural or online libraries (for example Gallica): a population of seniors, fascinated by the process of how manuscripts are produced, calligraphy, paleography, etc.
§ 40 All the people interviewed, including the researchers, would like the site to have well-designed graphics that are pleasing to the eye: the container should be on a par with the contents.
§ 41 Great care must be taken with this so that it arouses the curiosity of the visitors and makes them want to go further by providing original entries and points of view. At the same time, it must provide direct access to expert research and the personal area, given that the researchers do not want to have their own dedicated website. They say they are interested in the different points of view available and consider themselves part of the "general public" on subjects outside their own.
§ 42 The researchers were the most insistent on this point, probably put off by frustrating, unintuitive interfaces requiring too many clicks and frequent switching between pages.
§ 43 This point is particularly important for the researchers, as the slightest delay in response would immediately undermine a site on which they have to work long hours.
[1]. This article has been translated from an article published in French in the journal Bulletin des bibliothèques de France (Chevallier, Rioust, Bouvier-Ajam [2011]). However, the authors would like to thank the DM external reviewers and the DM board for their suggestions which allowed them to make of a few revisions (mostly clarifications) on the original article. A "Guide for leading the focus groups" has also been added.
[2]. Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (BSB), Biblioteca Històrica de la Universitat de València (BHUV), Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel (HAB), Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België/Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (KBR).
[3]. Quotations have been translated from verbatim reports collected during the interviews and focus groups.
[4]. Cf. Bouvier-Ajam 2009 ("Evaluation of the tests to provide protected works via the BnF Gallica 2 digital library"): "Nearly 60% of regular users of Gallica declared an occupation that implied frequent or even considerable documentary research: professional and amateur researchers, doctoral students, students (36%); high school and university teachers (11%); journalists, writers, librarians, school librarians (11%)."
[5]. In seventh grade (history of art from the ninth to the seventeenth century, study of a text from the Middle Ages); in tenth grade (a text in French, the work and image in Plastic Arts, the medieval town as an option in Art History); in the Applied Arts section of eleventh grade (from prehistory to the Industrial Revolution); and in the literature section in twelfth grade (a work from antiquity or the Middle Ages). The new French school curricula for 2010-2011 also include a "history of books," in the French classes from tenth grade, and will offer "exploratory lessons" including some to encourage studying aspects of medieval culture.
Bouvier-Ajam, Laurent. 2009. "Etude d'évaluation de l'expérimentation de la mise à disposition d'ouvrages sous droits via la bibliothèque numérique de la BnF Gallica 2," Final report (65 pages), 16th March. http://www.bnf.fr/documents/evaluation_gallica2.pdf
Chevallier Philippe, Rioust Laure, Bouvier-Ajam Laurent. 2011. "La consultation de manuscrits en ligne : une étude qualitative auprès de trois catégories d'utilisateurs potentiels," Bulletin des bibliothèques de France 56, no 5: 17-23.