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Florence Paisey Professor Paul Fyfe Digital Humanities Project Goals and Preparation for Research Collaboration Florida State Universitys Special Collections Department in the Strozier Library houses the Carothers Memorial Bible Collection. This collection includes a number of unusual, rare bibles; the earliest being the Latin Vulgate, translated into Greek and printed in 1491 by the celebrated Swiss publisher, Froben. Froben and the humanist scholar, Erasmus, were friends and worked closely together with Erasmus presiding over translations of influential scholars. Erasmus also administered some printings of Froben, including those of Ambrose and Poitiers. Included within the FSU Carothers Collection is the Protestant, Geneva Bible first printed in 1560 in Geneva due to English political constraints while the Catholic Queen Mary reigned. The Geneva Bible was the precursor to the King James Bible and the most influential English bible printed before the King James version. Some of the most celebrated English literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Milton, John Donne among many other writers and scholars of the day were influenced by the text and based their religious allusions and beliefs on the strongly Protestant and Calvinistic Geneva text. Whittingham, the principal printer of the Geneva Bible, was a Protestant, English biblical scholar and reformist whose scholarship was refined with his education at Oxford University. Due to Queen Marys reign and Catholicism, Protestantism and all texts related were prohibited, viewed as a felony under penalty of death such was Tyndales

2 fate. In consequence, Whittingham fled England, set up a printing shop in Basel, Switzerland and together with spiritual advisors such as Calvin, translated the bible into English and printed it together with Sampson and Gilby. Features of the Geneva Bible that distinguished it from all other Bibles of its time were the marginal notes that interpreted scriptures for commoners, its maps and
marginal notes

Estiennes numbered verses. Readers recognize verse numbers now as a conventional, organizational element of a biblical page. However, the Geneva Bible arranged verse, for the first time, with numerical ordering or

map

codification. The Geneva Bible was chiefly printed in roman letters, although a few editions were also issued in blackletter. Its text was primarily based on the Tyndale and the Coverdale

3 Bibles. The initial format was compact a quarto making its transport and portability much easier than previous bibles produced as folios. Later editions of the Geneva Bible were issued as octavos increasing its portability. As an instance of the Geneva Bibles influence and portability, Pilgrims traveling to the New World on the Mayflower carried the Geneva Bible. Although the technical systems for digitizing books have been explored extensively in the literature, insufficient emphasis and understanding has been paid to transcribing fulltext, searchable texts with the provision of bibliographic evidence along with images and electronic tools. Such data and tools provide evidentiary information with a view to authenticating texts and identifying variants among editions, impressions and issues copy-specific information. In addition, copy-specific bibliographic information could offer explicit, precise metadata to enhance accessibility through descriptive access points. An online, scholarly presence of the Carothers Memorial Bible Collection would provide a distinctive contribution to FSUs Special Collections Department and its capability to produce online, detailed descriptions of collections with granular bibliographic information. Leading-edge electronic bibliographic tools intended to compare editions, issues and variants among extant copies would be essential. Given that 2011 is the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible (KJB), exhibiting both a virtual and physical exhibition of FSUs Carothers Collection is timely. The virtual exhibition, initially, would involve displaying a high resolution, exemplar image of the Geneva Bible such as the celebrated title page or a map. The image should be contextualized with historical, theological, political, and bibliographic or textual exposition along with biographical information regarding the printers, unusual features, a

4 description of the significance of the image and contributions to early printing. Contributions would particularly involve the mise-en-page, illustration, format and typography all integral elements of its historical significance and portability. Instructional materials, including basic bibliographical vocabulary, book history, bible production and transmission and provenance would also be advisable. The history of illustration and typography in bibles has particular significance theologically and politically. These elements could be underscored and contextualized with other bibles, such as the Bishops Bible and the Rouen Bible. The TEI initiative offers guidelines for encoding physical collations, providing scholars with initial access to distinctions among editions, issues, transmission, dissemination and variant versions. Online access to an exhibition focused on the theme of illustration and typography in the Geneva Bible would offer analytical bibliographic information; digitized content; transcribed text (caption), a print catalog and digital representation through a usable interface that maps to historical, biographical, literary, and illustration-related context. Ideally, links to finding aids for associated papers would provide supplementary context. The project is far too extensive as a final term project, however the foundations of this project can be initiated now with a view to extending and completing the project over the next term. The general process entails:

A collection-level bibliographic record that classifies groups of volumes based on MARC DCRM 2 (Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials). The ESTC and EEBO provide this information in MARC format with options for concise details of a work. EEBO provides a facsimile of the Geneva Bible. Explicit analytical bibliographic information encoded within TEI guidelines.

Formulating criteria for a unified selection criteria will be based on users needs and interests, information-seeking behaviors, scholarly and educational value, uniqueness or imaginative vision, and significance of illustration and typography in early printed bibles. Providing Dublin Core (DC) bibliographic metadata with controlled vocabularies endorsed by the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the American College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Digitizing an exemplar page (illustration) and recording bibliographic description and textual variants and/or annotations in the associated MARC record.