ANS: Digital Publications Project

ANS Digital Publications Project

This page was originally written by Sebastian Heath

The American Numismatic Society is developing an infrastructure for the digital publication of numismatic catalogs, exhibitions, articles, and other materials. As a general rule, this system will take advantage of existing standards and tools whenever possible. This means that texts will be encoded using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and that the Text Encoding Initiative's (TEI) xml dtd's and schemas will be used where appropriate. Further information about the TEI is available at its web site. There are many good starting points for learning about xml, including www.xml.org and the much more technical World Wide Web consortium's xml site.

Current Initiatives

Geographic Entities:
Numismatic Literature: This is the on-line continuation of the Society's annual listing of numismatic titles. Bibliographic information is entered directly into xml files conforming to an ad-hoc dtd. These files are then rendered into html for delivery via the web and into xsl:fo for the production of pdf's that are then printed as soft-bound volumes.
"Drachmas, Doubloons, and Dollars: The History of Money": This exhibition is currently on display at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. All the text from the labels and panels has been collected into an XML document using an ad-hoc dtd. An automatically generated html version is available as part of the main ANS web-site:
- HTML-formatted. (The case titles link into an online presentation of the gallery's content.)
Sylloge of the Islamic Glass Weights in the Gayer-Anderson Museum, Cairo: This USAID funded project is preparing a complete catalog of the stamped glass weights, vessel stamps and ring weights in the museum.
- HTML-formatted searchable catalog.
John H. Kroll and Sebastian Heath (2002), "The British Museum Lot of Silver from the Taranto 1911 Hoard (Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards [1973], no. 1874)": Presenting the uncoined silver from this hoard. The following versions are available:
Introduction to Numismatic Terms and Methods: This document is required reading for students in the ANS' summer seminar. Two versions are available:
- HTML-formatted for viewing in web browsers.
- TEI-conformant xml version. (Conversion to TEI is in progress)
Roman Provincial Coins in the Collection of the American Numismatic Society: This is a test-bed for developing technologies that will permit the efficient on-line publication of the Society's objects. Three versions are available:
An Introduction to Roman Coinage: This text is being adapted from the pamphlet that accompanied the Society's set of Roman slides. Two versions are available:
- HTML-formatted with thumbnail images for viewing in web browsers.
- TEI-conformant xml version. (Conversion is in progress)

Non-XML Files

Constantine Iliescu, The History of Coinage in Romania, Bucharest (2002).

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