Projects & Initiatives
Rara Project
The constantly expanding collection of old and rare prints (RARA) dates back to the beginnings of the founder Henriette Hertz and now comprises over 20,000 titles from the 15th to the 20th century. In their object-like nature, they supply a material point of contact with the published knowledge of earlier centuries and, by virtue of the individual characteristics of each copy, offer a key to unlocking the context which generated and sustained this knowledge. The study of the originals, which alone makes such material information accessible, remains the ideal path of research.
At the same time, the Hertziana has always been a leader in the development, application, and expansion of digital research. Since 2005, we have been working on constantly improving procedures for the digital indexing of our rare book collections. What began with the Wolfenbütteler Buchspiegel is now being continued with the latest digitization technology and the use of intelligent OCR processes (Transkribus). All the digital content we produce is available in open access under copyright law. The first Rara viewer, developed from 2005 onwards by Martin Raspe , Hertziana scholar and pioneer in Digital Humanities, concentrates on the collection focus of the Rome Guides and can still be consulted. It combines the pioneering double-page display with content indexing using structural data and codicological descriptions. These 163 books are accessible in their entirety via https://rara.biblhertz.it. The new dlib viewer rare books online, which has been set up since 2015 and is linked to the OPAC, offers the current pool of digitized material in optimal resolution and color fidelity. Among other material, the complete stock of travel literature, which is gradually being made searchable through the full-text search option, can be found here. See Transkribus. Some of the main topics are presented in the collections section.
