eContentplus BERNSTEIN – THE MEMORY OF PAPERS Collaborative systems for paper expertise and history (targeted project) max. EU funding: 1,6 Mill EURO project start date: September 1, 2006 duration: 30 months

eContentplus Data to be aggregated Paper related data and tools –Images (drawings, rubbings, X-ray images, beta- and electronradiographies, digital photographies, …) 1. OEAW (KSBM) Grayscale images with textual description LABW Binary images with textual description NIKI Grayscale images with textual description KB Grayscale images with textual description –Metadata (measured paper characteristics, watermark classification, date and place of production, information about the documents (for example for books, the title, author, publisher name and date). –Contextual data Bibliography Incunabula catalogue ISTC Historical GIS –Content processing software image processing software, measurement tools, textual data-mining, historical cartography, statistics programs

eContentplus Expected Results substantial improvements of all expertise areas related to paper studies Creation of synergies, exchanges and collaboration networks between traditionally remote disciplines Promotion of an under-developed cultural and social EU asset Integrated workspace for paper expertise offering access to all important dig. paper sources –integration of data and tools –authentication and identification based on feature measurement in images –provide paper description standards –multi-lingual support (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian) –enriched data by context sources (bibliography, incunabula catalogue) –statistical and historical cartography of paper features Dissemination toolkit

eContentplus Target users, their needs & benefits The project addresses users from the following sectors, historians being the main beneficiaries: Science — historians, particularly historians of the paper, book and manuscripts, art historians; computer scientists specialized in image processing, shape analysis, database integration; Culture — conservators (librarians, archivists, museographers), private art collectors; Education — higher education in humanities (history, art history) and arts (conservation techn.); Market — auction houses, antiquarians; Industry — art objects restorers; papermaking industry and artisans; Government — forensic experts, security personnel dealing with paper documents; Identification —time and place of production and usage (all users have an interest in this application); Authentication — two papers where produced in similar or identical circumstances (mostly interesting for the governmental and art market sectors); Contextualization — contextual information about papers can be obtained (benefiting humanities scholars); Measuring — features measurement (art restorers and paper makers, restoration of damaged cultural goods); Deployment — ready-to-use exploitation kit (archives, libraries, collections) Other —ability to enhance images for visual inspection, to perform searches in vast paper databases and find bibliographical references on paper history.

eContentplus Consortium 1.Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria (OEAW, Coordinator) Management, database of mediaeval watermarks, dig. repertories, image processing tools 2.Archives of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Germany (LABW) Huge collection of watermmarks (Piccard, 95000) 3.University of Technology, Institute for Information Systems and Computer Media, Graz, Austria (TUG) Integration software (implementation), user interface 4.Laboratory for Occidental Medieval Studies in Paris, France (LAMOP) Historical GIS 5.The National Library of Germany, Leipzig, Germany (DNB) Bibliography on paper, huge paper collection 6.Dutch University Institute for Art History, Florence, Italy (NIKI) Paper database, art historical expertise 7.Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands (DUT) Data mining software, intelligent image processing 8.National Library of the Netherlands, TheHague, Netherlands (KB) Watermarks in incunabulae, 9.Liverpool University, United Kingdom (LU) Integration architecture