Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Last site update of the year!

There are not many user visible changes, but the rose site has changed a great deal under the hood. The FSI image viewer has been updated to the latest release and our image server is now the new FSI server. The combination of the new image viewer and image server should be faster and more stable. Numerous other changes should make the rest of the site snappier too.

The one content addition is the Chevrier Rose. You may also notice that edge flipping and page dragging have been enabled in the page turner. Try dragging the corner of a page or simply click on the corner to see.

Bug fixes include:
  • Always create a new viewer popup when requested.
  • Race condition removed in the page tracking code.
  • Foliation of printed books fixed in description and viewer.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Collection grows to 130 manuscripts

  • UC 1380 image tagging fixed.
  • More image tagging.
  • Small fixes to collection data spreadsheet generation and display.
  • More manuscripts from the BnF availble.

Monday, October 26, 2009

17 more manuscripts available!

  • Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal: ms. 6818, ms. 2989, ms. 2872, ms. 5209, ms. 3336, and ms. 6045
  • BnF: fr. 814, fr. 1568, fr. 798, fr. 1576, fr. 12592, fr. 19153, fr. 12596, fr. 19157, fr. 24390, fr. 19157, fr. 24388, fr. 25523, fr. 25526, fr. 2194, fr. 24392
  • More detailed image tagging and more manuscripts tagged
  • Better handling of paginated manuscripts.
  • Improved character name searching
  • Image tagging display update
  • Index terms used in tagging listed in illustration keyword glossary.
  • Full description of Selden Supra 57 from Tim Stinson
  • Background color change in content window.
  • All manuscript descriptions now include information about different texts.

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Getty has produced a short video on making manuscripts, and they have another on the structure of a medieval manuscript:



Both videos might prove helpful for someone examining the images of manuscripts found on our site.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Site update

  • Changed image tagging format to normalize character names and illustration titles. This greatly improved the illustration title and character name tables.
  • Reworked the data collection table to better utilize space.
  • Updated to latest gwt and gwt-visualization.
  • More image tagging.
  • Support for bibliographies in RefWorks XML format. See Douce 195, Douce 332, and Selden Supra 57.
  • Automatic linking of bibliography references to Google books when available.
  • Fixed search bug caused by huge query expansions (searching for responsiveness, or Sisyphus in Safari) by limiting expansions.
  • Fixed search bug caused by " not being escaped
  • The contact email address working again after resolving email relay issue
  • Fixed naming of images in endmatter of Hunter 409.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Screencasts

We have put up 3 videos demonstrating how to search manuscript folios, illustrations, and text.

These screencasts were made by our student assistant, Taylor Breslin.

Finding a folio



Finding an illustration or illustration keyword



Finding a line or section of verse

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Available editions

Parts of several editions of the poem are freely available in Google books. There is vol. 1 of Méon's 1819 edition; vol. 1 of Michel's 1864 edition; vol. 3 of the edition of Langlois from 1921 as well as his Origines et sources du Roman de la Rose; vol. 3 of Dufresnoy and Damerey's 1799 edition; and vol. 5 of the 1880 edition of Croissandeau. There is also a transcription of Hunter 409 in Max Kaluza's 1891 publication. And finally, Francis William Bourdillon's book on The early editions of the Roman de la Rose is available in full.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Site update

Revisions have been made to the French version of the site, book descriptions and image tagging have now been added, and some minor bugs fixed. Check back for further updates in the near future. 

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Usage statistics (through May 2009)

Since the launch of the site on September 2008 through May 2009, the Rose team has noted the following usage statistics:
  • 18,557 visits from 123 different countries or territories
  • The top five countries represented (in order): United States, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain
  • 14,402 absolute unique visitors
  • 22% of these visitors have returned to the site
  • 423 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
  • 312 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
  • 163 of these visitors have used the site 26-50 times
  • 93 of these visitors have used the site 51-100 times
  • 9 of these visitors have used the site 101-200 times
  • 945 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
  • 346 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes
We have noted that France is now number two in the list of top countries represented. This movement may relate to our efforts to translate the site into French.

Usage statistics (through April 2009)

Since the launch of the site on September 2008 through April 2009, the Rose team has noted the following usage statistics:
  • 16,331 visits from 119 different countries or territories
  • The top five countries represented (in order): United States, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain
  • 12,852 absolute unique visitors
  • 21% of these visitors have returned to the site
  • 357 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
  • 254 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
  • 105 of these visitors have used the site 26-50 times
  • 63 of these visitors have used the site 51-100 times
  • 763 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
  • 182 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes
We have recently augmented the Google Analytics so that we can now track usage of individual manuscripts and folios. As we gather these data, we will report them to the blog.

Friday, May 8, 2009

32 more manuscripts available!

Changes
  • Better sorting of strings ending in numbers when browsing books.
  • Formatting fix of French help translation
  • Minor French translation updates
  • Made 32 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale avilable
We are working now to flesh out the manuscript descriptions of the newly uploaded manuscripts and tag the illustrations.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Narrative Mapping and Narrative Sections

As explained under “Narrative Mapping” in the site, citation practice for the Roman de la Rose and most medieval texts has traditionally referenced the currently accepted critical editions. Yet this scholarly protocol inhibits the cross-manuscript comparative study that the Roman de la Rose Digital Library promotes. Since the number of lines for the work varies from one manuscript to another, depending on interpolations or excisions, the narrative mapping of the Roman de la Rose divides the text into reading segments instead of lines. In the Roman de la Rose, G and J represent the authors Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun while Arabic numerals and roman letters indicate segments and shorter sub-segments within them. For example, a section such as “g3” includes two segments, “g3a” (Amans discovers the Garden of Deduiz) ranging from verses 129 to 138 in Felix Lecoy’s edition, and segment “g3b” (Ekphrastic description of the portraits of the courtly vices) ranging from 139 to 460. The second segment is further subdivided in individual descriptions: “g3b.1” (Haïne 139-151), “g3b.2” (Felonie 152-155), “g3b.3” (Vilanie 156-168), “g3b.4” (Covoitise 169-194), “g3b.5” (Avarice 195-234), “g3b.6” (Envie 235-290), “g3b.7” (Tritesce 291-338), “g3b.8” (Vielleice 339-404), “g3b.9” (Ypocrisie 405-438), “g3b.10” (Povreté 439-460).

These divisions and the range of verses means that comparable passages across different manuscript can be readily locatable while number of lines given for each section facilitate tracking variations in section length from one exemplar to another. The narrative mapping protocol (and the explanation on which I base this blog) was devised by Prof. Stephen G. Nichols borrowing from that used for classical texts, where one cites not a page number or a given edition or translation but a segment of the text. Jeun de Meun’s section was done by Prof. Tracy Adams and a full revision by Jeanette Patterson. Prof. Sylvia Huot added information on some of the main known interpolations. These interpolations have been given different numbering, such as “g20a.5*1” (Anonymous continuation in which Jealousy falls asleep, and the Lover gets to spend a night of bliss with the Rose) or “j2d*1” (‘Litany of Love’ in which Reason describes spiritual love, refers to the Passion of Christ, and outlines a mystical ascent through contemplation, ultimately advising the Lover to select the Virgin Mary as love object).

Once the Roman de la Rose was divided into the narrative segments explained above we started to match particular manuscripts to these general narrative segments. Some exemplars were matched manually, segment by segment, and in those an actual transcription of the manuscript’s first line is included. For this case see Bodmer 79, where a section like G5e (Cortoisie invites Amans to dance) starts with the actual transcription “La karole quiert si plaisant”, followed by the verse number in Lecoy’s edition (L775).


In most cases, however, the matching of a specific exemplar with the narrative segments was generated automatically through an algorithm and so it will only approximate the actual start of each reading segment. Most of the remaining narrative mapping will be generated automatically. In these automatically generated cases, the first line of text is provided but instead of matching the actual manuscript it matches the transcription of Selden Supra 57. The line will thus start with (SS57) and the narrative segment will include a question mark. For an example see Arsenal 3338, where section “g6a?” (Amors introduced & described) is transcribed as “(SS57) A lui se tint de l'autre part.”

The transcription from SS57 allows users to check themselves for the actual placement of the starting line. Although generated automatically the algorithm gives a fairly good approximation and should be accurate within one to two columns to the actual start of each reading segment.

To access narrative segments in the manuscripts that have been mapped so far select Narrative sections in the Home page and click on the desired section id. The available narrative segments can also be accessed through the Page Turner view with the drop-down menu.

If you gather more accurate information on narrative segments please feel free to let us know at contactus@romandelarose.org.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Usage statistics (through March 2009)

Since the launch of the site on September 2008 through March 2009, the Rose team has noted the following usage statistics:

• 14,112 visits from 112 different countries or territories
• The top five countries represented (in order): United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Spain
• 11,205 absolute unique visitors
• 21% of these visitors have returned to the site
• 314 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
• 192 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
• 605 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
• 82 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes

We experienced a spike in visits in late March after someone (not a member of the Rose team) registered the Rose Digital Library on StumbleUpon. Starting in April, we have refined the analytics to gather more fine grained statistics such as visits to individual folios or pages on the site. We will report on these new statistics as we gather them.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Major site update

Below is a list of the changes. Later posts will give more detailed explanations of the new features.

Help document:
  • Content updates
  • Layout fixes
Collection spreadsheet: New feature!
  • Mined manuscript descriptions to create spreadsheet
  • Tabular view with Google visualizations
  • Downloadable in CSV format for use with local spreadsheet applications
Illustration titles: New feature!
  • Tabular view of titles, average position, and frequency.
  • Data generated from image tagging
Extant manuscripts:
  • Moved to tabular Google visualization
  • Link to view in Google docs
Narrative sections: New feature!
  • Poem divided into sections. Each section has an id, a description, and a Lecoy range.
  • Tabular view of ids, titles, and Lecoy range
  • Click on section id to search for folios containing that section
Narrative mapping: New feature!
  • A manuscript is mapped by finding the start and end of each section in that manuscript.
  • The mapping may be done manually, which takes a long time, or automatically.
  • The automatic mapping takes as input a description of the book structure and guesses the column of the section start/end.
  • Only a few manuscripts are mapped so far.
  • The sections can be searched by title and id.
  • Section in the current page can be displayed to the right of the page turner.
  • Manual mapping includes a transcription of the first line of each section.
Character names: New feature!
  • List of characters in the poem
Miscellaneous:
  • Lecoy number always displayed with leading L
  • Display date when site last updated
  • Navigation on left reworked
  • Rubrics that are transcribed when describing the book structure for automatic narrative mapping are searchable
  • Normalization of illustration titles in image tagging
  • Hit enter in text box to do advanced search
  • Additional and updated French translations
  • Guessing names of printed book folios works better.
  • Finer grained tracking of site usage with Google analytics.
  • Mention contactus email when internal error occurs
  • Summary book descriptions added
  • More manuscripts cropped for page turner
  • Google visualization api used for tabular views of site. Click on column title to sort (unless sort is disabled for that table)
Known issues:
  • Webkit (Safari, Chrome) layout problem with header being offset.
  • Tabular Google visualization sometimes has columns misaligned. Click on column title to fix.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Usage statistics (through February 2009)

Since the launch of the site on September 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009, the Rose team has noted the following usage statistics:

• 9,216 visits from 100 different countries or territories
• The top five countries represented (in order): United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada
• 6,902 absolute unique visitors
• 25% of these visitors have returned to the site
• 267 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
• 160 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
• 458 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
• 72 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes

The Walters Art Museum and the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University recently hosted a reception in honor of the Roman de la Rose exhibition at the Walters. We will soon post photos from this reception on the blog.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Update

Images of a 15th century Roman de La Rose in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (The Philip S. Collins Collection, 1945-65-3) have just been added to the site. The manuscript's 75 miniatures are thought to have been painted by two artists in the workshop of the Maître Francois, illuminator of a French translation of Augustine's de Civitate Dei now in Paris (BnF, ms. fr. 18-19). This Rose has elaborate floral and foliate marginal borders and its bâtarde text incorporates the cleric Gui de Mori's additions and revisions to the poem. There are also many marginal inscriptions added by a reader in the 16th century.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

News

11 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale have just been added to the digital library. A Rose in the University of Manchester's John Rylands University Library and one at the University of Pennsylvania are now up as well. We are in the process of cropping images and adding scholarly content. There are new codicological descriptions of two manuscripts, Penn 906 and Walters 143, and more to come. We are also improving the French language site by offering new translations of pages, and would appreciate feedback on these or on any aspect of the project.

This gives us a total of 26 manuscripts and 2 early printed books digitized so far. Check back as we continue to add manuscripts through 2009!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Extant manuscripts

Currently, no one can say with certainty exactly how many Rose manuscripts exist or where they are located, and thus we are working to create such a list. A number of factors make this a difficult task: manuscripts change names and hands over time; manuscripts are lost, destroyed, or stolen; manuscripts sometimes appear briefly on the market and are sold to anonymous owners; fragments exist in libraries around the world, and some of these have never been mentioned in publications; sometimes it is hard to know what to count as a Rose manuscript (there are, e.g., early translations into other languages, manuscripts containing only excerpts from the Rose, and copies of a prose version of the Rose). 
With the help of users of the digital library our list of manuscripts is being corrected and expanded. We would particularly like to thank Heidrun Ost for sending us changes. If you know of a Rose manuscript or fragment not given here, e-mail Prof. Timothy Stinson at tlstinson@gmail.com, and it will be added to the list.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Usage statistics (January 2009)

For the first four months of the Roman de la Rose Digital Library (through December 31, 2008), we have noted the following usage statistics:
  • 5,373 visits from 89 different countries or territories
  • The top five countries represented (in order): United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada
  • 4,108 absolute unique visitors
  • 24% of these visitors have returned to the site
  • 124 of these visitors have used the site 9-14 times
  • 52 of these visitors have used the site 15-25 times
  • 268 of these visits lasted between 10-30 minutes
  • 36 of these visits lasted over 30 minutes
We have received the images for 11 new manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale de France system which will be added soon to the Digital Library.