RoseDL - Roman de la Rose Digital Library
Roman de la Rose Digital Library (Start Date: Initial grant – July 1, 2005 and subsequent grant – October 1, 2007)
URL:
(development site in progress - not yet public)
Project Goals: Develop and sustain a digital library of Roman de la Rose manuscripts that is designed with scholarly requirements and community-based participation. The project provides an opportunity to explore using Fedora to support preservation and access to support research and teaching.
Leading Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
Sayeed Choudhury (), Stephen Nichols (), Thierry Delcourt ()
Project Highlights:
The most recent and exiting highlight for the Rose digital library is the agreement with the BnF to digitize 129 Rose manuscripts in France. In addition to the 20 existing manuscripts, we will have nearly 150 manuscripts available through the digital library. Rose scholars believe that there are about 250 extant copies, so the resulting digital library will include the most comprehensive view of the Roman de la Rose to date.
Milestones and Deliverables:
Last 12 months
- Developed Fedora-based platform that incorporates content and tools from diverse sources
- In addition to manuscripts from the BnF, we acquired digital images from the Library of Congress, Notre Dame, and the University of Pennsylvania. We also acquired images from two privately owned manuscripts. These “acquisitions” augment our existing holdings from the Bodleian Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Getty Institute, the WaltersArt Museum, and a privately owned manuscript.
- Developed a set of requirements to support Art History research (i.e., for visually-based studies in addition to the existing literary studies)
- New scene-based mapping and scheme for Rose manuscripts
- Development of new reduced tagging and markup protocols that support new scene-based mapping and visual requirements
- Transcription of three manuscripts from first phase of project using new protocols
Next 12 months
- Ingestion of content from BnF
- Integration of additional tools (e.g., Stanford’s zpr) and applications (e.g., Luna Insight, MDID, Sakai)
- New graphical design and implementation
- Business model
Community:
Most importantly, the scholarly community continues to be helpful and supportive in essential ways. Teams of scholars have transcribed manuscripts. Scholars have conducted research, taught classes, and written papers using the Rose site. From the technology perspective, there has been good support from the FedoraCommons, the Sakai Foundation, and technologists working with Luna Insight and MDID.
Sustainability:
Plan
As part of the most recent award from the Mellon Foundation, the Sheridan Libraries are working with the Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) to develop a sustainability plan that focuses on value derived from access to content, tools or services, teaching modules, and a scholarly apparatus (perhaps in the form of an electronic journal).
We intend to develop the Rose digital library in conjunction with our sustainability planning efforts. The timing of each “unveiling” of the Rose digital library milestone is coupled closely with specific events that will convene potential customers. In between each of these milestone events, we will continue to refine our analysis that focuses on institutional and individual customers, and potential willingness to pay for content and services.
Progress to date
- Identified potential institutional and individual customers
- Held focus group at American Library Association MidWinter meeting
- Delineated types of revenue streams
2008 Anticipated
- Additional focus groups at MedievalAcademy and Kalamazoo Conference
- Marketing analysis of potential revenue through different funding opportunities
- Financial analysis comparing ongoing revenue and costs
Marketing/Evangelism:
Plan
To date, the marketing/evangelism has focused on Rose-specific outreach through our scholars and Advisory Board, conference presentations, and articles. The most important aspect of this outreach is the “viral marketing” that has taken place amongst scholars. It has been essential to pace this outreach to manage expectations appropriately.
Progress to date
Progress is most readily measure in terms of a steadily increasing number of requests for access to the old site (which is password-protected), and the number of citations or mentions of the Rose digital library in publications of either a press release or scholarly nature.
2008 Anticipated
With the BnF involvement and technological progress, we anticipate scaling up the marketing/evangelism aspects of the Rose digital library. In particular, we will provide presentations on the Rose digital library at key conferences and meetings specifically designed to consider the sustainability dimensions. We will also leverage the substantial resources of the BnF in this regard. We are planning a joint Rose exhibition in Baltimore and Paris that will feature both physical and digital manuscripts. As part of a recent press release, our colleagues at the BnF described the Rose digital library as “This project is of special importance for the French national library, for it will supply, for the first time, a comprehensive digital library of one of the most important French medieval texts.”
Synergy with other projects:
There are obvious synergies with the FedoraCommons and Sakai Foundation given our technological approach. We have worked with Luna Insight and members of the MDID community. It would be worthwhile to work with ARTstor as well. We are working closely with Stanford University Libraries to demonstrate manuscript interoperability. It would be highly desirable to build upon this work to consider a manuscript toolkit that would work across diverse manuscript collections.
We have explored in a preliminary manner the possibility of adopting or building upon our Fedora instance to support the Perseus digital library.