The Electronic Beowulf


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The Electronic Beowulf
From Early Anglo-Saxon Text to Hypertext

Andrew Ford
(andrew@icarus.demon.co.uk)

17th September 1994

Abstract:

This paper describes the combined use of Mosaic and the World Wide Web as tools that will both allow scholars and researchers to examine ancient manuscripts without the risk of physical damage to the manuscripts, and facilitate greater general public access to the material. The British Library is currently engaged in a project to establish a full image archive relating to the transmission down the ages of one of the earliest known Anglo-Saxon poems: Beowulf (thought by some to have been written in the eighth century AD, and rife with fighting, slaying and mythical monsters), as part of its commitment to increase access to its collections, by use of digital imaging and networking technology.

Images of parts of the Beowulf manuscript are scanned in 24-bit colour, both under visible and ultraviolet light. These images may be of entire pages, or just single words or letters. The resulting image files are huge: at a maximum size of 2320 by 3072 pixels each image takes up about 20-25 MB, however they can reveal even more information than would physical examination of the original manuscripts, for example allowing the detection of alterations to the manuscripts and revealing letters that have been obscured by repairs to eighteenth century fire damage.

The Library is experimenting with the use of Mosaic and the World Wide Web as a front end to provide initial access to materials in the Library's Reading Rooms in London. Mosaic was chosen as a powerful, simple-to-use interface suitable for users who may not be computer-literate. By use of off-line image preparation, server-side scripts performing on-the-fly image manipulation and caching of images, users are able to search quickly for detail in the images, while the hypertext features of the Web allow cross references to background material to be presented.


Next: Introduction

Andrew Ford (andrew@icarus.demon.co.uk), Sat Sep 17 17:02:30 BST 1994