Friday 11 June 2010

Eavesdropping on the past

Today sees the launch of the John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera, the product of a unique partnership between JISC’s  Digitisation Programme, the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, and ProQuest to conserve, catalogue and digitise more than 65,000 items drawn from the collection.

The material selected for conservation, cataloguing and digitisation comprises a wide array of different types of printed document, including posters and handbills for theatrical and non-theatrical entertainments, broadsides relating to murders and executions, book and journal prospectuses, popular topographical prints, and a wealth of different kinds of printed advertising material. The resulting online collection will form an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the histories of consumption, leisure, gender, popular culture, commerce, technology, crime, and a host of other areas. With each item presented as a full-colour, high-resolution facsimile, the John Johnson Collection will also be indispensable for researchers studying the development of printing and visual culture in modern Britain.

More information and a short video about the project can be found at JISC's website.

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