Museo Galileo’s integrated digital library. The Galileothek@ model

Demonstration
Iolanda Rolfo, Italy

Galileothek@ represents a complete collection of Galilean web resources, easy to explore thanks to refined instruments of research. It could be defined as a thematic, hybrid, Digital Library that integrates digital representations of texts, images, documents, bibliographical records, existing and newly created digital information, plus chronological, lexicographical and subject indexes. Galileothek@ also includes catalogues of objects, research instruments, etc. concerning every aspect of Galileo’s life and cultural activities, as well as the reception of his intellectual heritage.

The user, by putting a query to any one of its different archives, can immediately verify whether other related documents exist in any of the other repositories, and can navigate between them with great rapidity.

Galileothek@ is designed to be a new model of digital library. It is a scholarly product that will be developed as a community research environment, also through interaction with the users. The new Galileothek@ (at present, version 1.0 exists on the Web) will be published during the year 2014.

The project includes the following archives:

an Iconographic Archive, offering in digital format the content of the updated thematic volume of the “Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo” [National Edition of the Works of Galileo];

a Virtual Museum Archive, a virtual environment presenting a display of the material evidence relevant to Galileo’s scientific achievements, to the design, construction and operation of the new research instruments;

a Texts Archive containing in digital format all of the texts of the Galilean works published in the “Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo Galilei” (20 vols. in 21 tomes), edited by Antonio Favaro;

a Manuscripts Archive with a catalogue of manuscripts pertaining to Galileo’s life and works. In this first stage, the entire corpus of the Galilean Collection in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze [National Central Library of Florence] will be made available for consultation;

a Biographies Archive consisting of the conversion into digital format of the biographical entries (over 1600 items) found in Volume XX of the “Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo” by Antonio Favaro;

a Galilean Itineraries Archive consisting of the places mentioned in the “Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo” with a link to the passage in which each place appears;

a Galileo’s Library Archive, which includes over 500 works found by Antonio Favaro to have belonged to the great scientist’s private library;

a Galilean International Bibliographic Archive, containing texts of Galilean interest published from the late 16th century to the present (approximately 21,000 bibliographical listings);

a Chronological Archive recording all of the events pertinent to the course of Galileo’s biography (over 4,000 records).

An additional section is devoted to the Galilean Lexicon, recording all of the terms found in the works of Galileo and the numerous letters he wrote, which can be interrogated by headword or by form.

Lastly, the entire corpus of the archives can be searched transversally by reversing, the  Indice dei nomi e delle cose notabili [Index of names and significant events], edited by Antonio Favaro and published in vol. XX of the “Edizione”.