Watermark Archive Initiative -- NEH Application

Every work of art or document on paper contains within its paper substrate important evidence of its origin and production history. All who work with paper-based objects – humanists and scholars in all disciplines, curators, conservators and other museum, library and archive professionals, law enforcement and protection of cultural heritage agencies – rely on comparison of papers for authentication and determination of provenance and historical associations. Why, then, in this age of digital imaging, are we devoting so much attention to digital imagery of paper-based objects but failing to image and describe the substrate? Scholars and professionals in every humanistic discipline are trained to describe papers in their publications of the intellectual and artistic content found on paper. The use of paper knows no disciplinary or professional boundaries, yet no method has ever been devised to enable methodologically consistent, trans-disciplinary publication of paper descriptions capable of universal access by a single search, that would facilitate the comparison of papers.

• Paper data and images have typically been published in printed watermark catalogs with the technologies of the past; they are too imprecise to provide the answers humanists seek.
• Those published in scholarly periodicals or specialized books cannot be found across disciplines.
• Thorough, transdisciplinary searching is too laborious and the results too limited to justify the effort

While the significance of paper for authentication and historical research is universally recognized, lack of reliable, accessible paper descriptions hinders its use, and it is overlooked even by Object ID, developed for use by law enforcement agencies like Interpol. The problem is how to exploit the potential of information in paper by making both publication and search for papers practical. The solution is to build, over time, a comprehensive distributed database, for integrated access, documenting known papers and their associations with the persons and institutions who used them and with the intellectual and artistic content preserved on those papers.

The Watermark Archive Initiative (WAI) will produce an open-source online implementation of its International Paper Registry. IPR is a tool for online publishing and searching of paper descriptions and images of paper substrates in paper-based objects – literary works, graphic art, musical scores, medieval manuscripts, books, maps, archival documents, correspondence, currency, securities, and more. WAI is working with the Bernstein Consortium, a group of European state libraries, museums, and research institutions now implementing, with an eContent+ grant, WAI’s plan for a universal online distributed database system (“Bernstein Paper Portal”). The proposed IPR project includes three parts: the open-source IPR Database Implementation, the IPR Pilot Projects, and the Dissemination program. The database will work on ordinary web browsers and via the Paper Portal. The Pilot Projects – a
set of collaborative paper publications – are needed for development of the IPR database and manuals, and its handling of diverse materials, both
online searching via the Paper Portal and data entry.

The IPR database schema is designed to support the wide-ranging needs of humanistic scholarship. It

• exploits the power of the relational database to facilitate structured queries to reveal the human and organizational relationships underlying the history of civilizations as revealed in their use of paper,
• exploits digital imaging technology with paper for answering the questions of today’s humanists and historians, as well as for authentication, proof of
  ownership and protection of cultural heritage.
• enables collaboration across a wide range of disciplines, institutions, and professions to accumulate, over time, a vast collection of data about paper and its users
• through integrated access to widely distributed databases enables searching for paper data at a level of sophistication that is only feasible with large amounts of data accumulated over time
• facilitates comparative study through use of technological tools for study and analysis of paper.

The project will deliver the following products:

• an open-source (MySQL) database, over a decade in development, for use both locally and via the Web
• Expansion of the IPR’s present capabilities by internationalization, interoperability with OCLC’s World Cat and other resources (for standard authority files and identifications of sources such as literary works, editions, documents) and capability for interoperability with collection management programs
• completion delivery online of three pilot projects, of scholarly importance in their right, but designed and included here to test IPR data entry, online searching, and integrated access via the Bernstein Paper Portal to the IPR archives, that are served online from dispersed institutions,.
• A dissemination program (free download; users’ and installers’ manuals; conferences and consultations)
• A sustainability plan: interim maintenance at Bates College, succeeeded by a consortium of institutions and leadership group to take ownership of IPR and responsibility for future financing and development.

Attached below are the full NEH proposal, the list of participants for the proposed project, and the NEH budget. Letters of support and commitment are not provided here but are available on request from the project director: rallison@bates.edu