ABOUT

The project, which ran from 2017 to 2019 and was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), had the aim of digitising and fully cataloguing the Miscellanea Curiosa and subsequent publications up to 1791. On the one hand, high-quality digital versions of the journal that were not yet available have now been created, while at the same time, and above all, the serialised encyclopaedias that were published between 1670 and 1791 were formally and fully catalogued in accordance with common library and technical standards and thus recorded in transregional reference systems down to the level of individual entries. 

The objective was achieved by collaborating with the Thuringian University and Regional Library. The journals platform Journals@UrMEL, operated by the ThULB on the basis of MyCoRe, was used as a suitable scientific and material-specific context for the project.

In total, the 16-month project involved the digitisation of 88 volumes with over 55,000 pages, while approximately 17,000 structural elements were formally catalogued, based on standards for old prints. The Observationes were catalogued by title, author, page range in the volume and any other noteworthy details, such as illustrations or printing errors. Structural elements such as title pages, dedications, list of contents, register and separate scientific papers from the appendix of the respective volume were also recorded. The author details are linked to the Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei, GND). As part of the project, there were also additions to the metadata of individual persons as well as the creation of new records, in order to display all contributors fully and in a standardised way.

The collection itself is available online at the portal Journals@UrMEL of the Thuringian State and University Library Jena (ThULB).