At the Interface of Religion and

Cosmopolitanism:

Bernard Picart’s Cérémonies et coutumes

religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723-1743)

and the European Enlightenment

A conference at the Getty Research Institute and the Clark Library organized by Margaret C. Jacob, UCLA, and Wijnand

Mijnhardt, Universiteit Utrecht

“The field of knowledge is the common property of all mankind “Thomas Jefferson

(from a letter to Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War June 22, 1807)

“Although not always well appreciated, a strong and inextricable link exists between the fundamental mission of our cultural institutions and a common ethical imperative to nurture and secure tolerant, secular democracy.”

-- Tom Moritz“The cultural commons: democracy and digital progress”,

First Draft Fall, 2007, No.6: pp.16-21

http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf© 2006 American Council of Learned Societies

“Infrastructure” ?“The infrastructure of scholarship was built over centuries. It includes: diverse collections of primary sources in libraries, archives, and museums; the bibliographies, searching aids, citation systems, and concordances that

make that information retrievable; the standards that are embodied in cataloging and classification systems; the journals and university presses that distribute the information; and the editors, librarians, archivists, and curators who link the operation of this

structure to the scholars who use it.

[ And it includes the lineage and heritability of knowledge as represented by the convention of citation and the censure of plagiarism... – tdm]

All of these elements have extensions or analogues in cyberinfrastructure, at least in the cyberinfrastructure that is required for humanities and social sciences.”

http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf

“Cyberinfrastructure” ?“The 2003 National Science Foundation report

Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure (hereafter referred to as the “Atkins report,” after Dan Atkins, who chaired the committee that produced it) described cyberinfrastructure as a ‘layer of enabling hardware, algorithms, software, communications, institutions, and personnel’ that lies between a layer of “base technologies . . . the integrated electro-optical components of computation, storage, and communication” and a layer of “software programs, services, instruments, data, information, knowledge, and social practices applicable to specific projects, disciplines, and communities of practice.”

http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf

“Digital Scholarship” ?“a) Building a digital collection of information for

further study and analysisb) Creating appropriate tools for collection-buildingc) Creating appropriate tools for the analysis and

study of collectionsd) Using digital collections and analytical tools to

generate new intellectual products [“knowledge”]e) Creating authoring tools for these new

intellectual products, either in traditional forms or in digital form “

http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf

• Comprehensiveness of access to all resources is improving

• Parity of access is improving• The efficiency of scholarship is improving • New primary sources are becoming

available• New analytical tools are becoming

available

AND SO...?

“The Picart Project”

What? and How?: Scanning and OCR’ing

• French, English, Dutch and German texts were identified at GRI, UCLA and the Huntington Library

• Agreements were concluded with all (Utrecht was involved in discussions as well...)

• Chet Grycz / “Libraries without Walls” (Oakland) was engaged in the digitization process

• Actual scanning was conducted at the GRI Visual Media Services lab• Text processing occurred both at Lw/oW and GRI – this included

“OCR” (Optical Character Recognition) processing at GRI• Problems occurred: [in French edition: 327/ 4219 ]

– in the scanning process (initial scanning rate 3-5 seconds per page) • Missing pages• Color bar left in image

– In the post-processing: • File naming (Major problem affecting our ability to do efficient QC)• Over-cropping

Record ID: 975568UCLA Libraries and CollectionsPicart, BernardThe ceremonies and religious customs of the various nations of the known world... designed by Bernard Picart... faithfully translated into English by a gentleman some time since of St. John's College in OxfordLondon, 1733-1739

Vol. 1, page 17

Pages/ Files

French - 4219 pages/ tiffs1 206.1 GBytes

English - 3372 pp./tiffs, 368.7 GBsGerman - 1247 pp./tiffs, 136 GBsDutch - 3379 pp./tiffs, 370 GBs

TOTAL - 12217 tiffs, 1080.8 GBs (1+ Terabytes)

1. “TIFF” = “Transfer Image File Format”, a standard digital image format

Picart_English_V1__0026b_0042.txt - Notepad 1 upon RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 17 As to bending the Knee in Adoration of the Deity, this too is one of the most antient Customs in the World 5 yet I cannot forbear observing to my Reader, that St. Basil discovered a Type both of Sin and Grace in this Act of Devotion. We bend the Knee, faith he, and this reprefenteth our Fall by Sin -y we afterwards rife again, and this is a 'Type of the divine Mercy that raises us again, and gives us Assurance to look up to Heaven. The Justness of this Type will strengthen, we hope, the Minds of all well- disposed Persons against the depraved Notions of those who would destroy all such Re- presentations for the Advancement of Reason in their Stead. But let us go on with our Enquiry into the Customs established in religious Worship. In former Times, during divine Worship, the Face was turned towards the East. Many Passages from the Antients might be quoted to prove this Assertion: But it will be sufficient, I presume, barely to name the Authors in whose a Works they are to be found. Vitruvius has laid it down for a Maxim, that a Temple should be disposed in such Manner, b that those who go to sacrifice at the Altar, may turn themselves to the East. The Altar too (according to Vi- truvius) ought to be turned towards that Part of the World. Probably the Origin of this Custom c is'owing to the Idolatry of those who first of all worshipped the Sun \ an Ido- latry which obtains to this Day, d amongst the East Indians and Americans. St. Austin" has very plainly proved, that the primitive Christians borrowed the Custom of their turning to the East from the Heathens. This Custom is come down to us, and still observed amongst the Roman Catholicks: But the antient Jews, on the contrary, turned themselves towards the West, that they might not copy the Idolatry of the Heathens- When they were on a Journey, or obliged to live without the Walls of ''Jerusalem, they used to pray with their Faces towards that City. As for the Mahometans, they turn to the South, upon Account of the City of Mecca, where stands the famous Sepulchre of Mahomet.

Sample OCR result from English Text

“Collaborative Scholarship”?• Given the relatively short timeline for

implementation a complete and thorough evaluation of possible software applications was not completed

• Confluence was selected on the basis of its reputation and its established user base

• The decision was taken to make the complete set of plates of the French edition available in Confluence

http://griwiki.getty.edu/confluence/login.action

griread / griread

The Getty “TEAMS” Application?

Digital Assets Management System

• French and English are currently available as searchable pdf’s (Dutch soon available – German currently “problematic”)

• Pending final agreements, all participants may have available all versions of the text for research use

• GRI will retain a “snapshot” of the site as of December, 2007

• In concept, UCLA will maintain and continue the site (question of continuity in transition...?)

AND NOW...?

GRI Staff Contributors

• Karim Boughida • David Brafman• Debra Canter• John Kiffe • Tom Moritz• Leah Prescott• Mary Sackett • Joe Shubitowski

A Basic Reference:

Our Cultural Commonwealth: The report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences

© 2006 American Council of Learned Societies

http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf