Icms 2015 burrows

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The Provenance and Histor y of the Manuscripts formerly in the Phillipps Collection

Department of Digital HumanitiesToby Burrows

The Phillipps manuscript collection

• Phillipps’ own printed catalogue

(1837-1871) goes up to no. 23,837

• Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (grandson,

d. 1938) spent fifty years

reorganizing and renumbering: up to

no. 38,628

• Fenwick’s estimate of the total was

close to 60,000 volumes and

individual documents

• Phillipps also owned 50,000 books,

as well as many prints, photographs,

drawings and paintings

Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872)

Assembling the collection

Meerman 1824

Celotti1825

Craven Ord

1829-32

Craven Ord

1829-32Page-Turner1824

Page-Turner1824

Lang1828

Drury1827

Guilford (North)

Heber1836

Van Ess1823-6

PHILLIPPSPHILLIPPS

Libri1859-62Libri

1859-62

Re-creation of Phillipps’ shelves, Grolier Club

Dispersal of the collection

Fenwick family (1886-1945):

• Sales to interested libraries and governments (Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Wales) – more than 2,500 items

• Auctions at Sotheby’s, 1886 to 1938 – 22 auctions, more than 22,000 lots, raised £97,000 (over £30 million)

• Residue (12,000 items) sold to the Robinson brothers in 1945 for £100,000 (£11-12 million)

W.H. Robinson Ltd (1945-1958):

•Series of sale catalogues, 1945-1954

•Donation to the Bodleian Library of the remaining materials, 1958

Sotheby’s (1946-1950, 1965-1977):•Series of sale catalogues

Data sourcesS our ce F orma t C omments

Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts

Relational database Incorporates other sources, esp. sales catalogues6,000 Phillipps MSS; 20,000 Phillipps events

Library catalogues (BL, KB etc.) Relational databases

Generally MARC recordsProvenance in notesExport can be awkward

Union cataloguesRelational databases

Printed bibliographies

Formats varyCoverage variesExport can be awkward

Sale catalogues

Printed books (some digitized)

Online sources (PDFs, Web sites)

Many included in Schoenberg MSS in ABE, eBay etc.

Phillipps catalogues and lists

Printed book; Partly digitizedSupplemented by handwritten notes

Partly included in SchoenbergHandwritten notes not digitized

Phillipps provenance indexes (BL, IRHT) Handwritten; Not digitized

Arranged by Phillipps numberNo longer updated

Annotated sales catalogues & printed catalogues Handwritten; Not digitized

Researchers (Munby), owners (Phillipps), auctioneers (Sotheby’s)Held in Cambridge UL, Bodleian, BL

Project summary

• Two main research questions: – The history and significant characteristics of the transmission

of a major group of European manuscripts between collections

and collectors over the centuries (provenance)– The applicability and value of Linked Data technologies as a

methodology for the large-scale analysis of the history of

cultural objects and collections (“network archaeology”)• Project plan– Ingest the data; transform them to a common Data Model;

represent them computationally; analyse and visualize them;

make them available to other researchers• Tools– Excel, OpenRefine, Neo4j, Nodegoat, visualization tools

In 1862, Sir Thomas Phillipps bought Phillipps MS 16402 in London as part of the Sotheby’s sale of the collection of Guglielmo Libri.

London

1862MS16402

Phillipps

Sotheby’s

Neo4j: graph database

• Nodes and relationships (each

with properties)• Various tools for data import• Cypher query language for

creating nodes, relationships

and properties• Cypher is also used to run

queries, analyse paths, count

and list• No schema as such – develop

and define as you go• Own visualization interface, but

also works with others• Data export – JSON

Neo4j Data Model – nodes (entities)

Node (entity: label) Type Properties

AGENT Person Organization

OBJECT Manuscript

id titlefoliationlayoutbindingillustration

WORK TextDescriptionExhibition

titleincipit language

PUBLICATION

CatalogueBookArticle

Neo4j Data Model – relationships

Relationship Properties

GAVESOLDCONSIGNEDOWNSACQUIRED

dateidcertitudeprice

PRODUCED

datecertitude

CONTAINS locus

SAME_AS certitude

Relationship Properties

COMPOSEDTRANSLATEDCOMPILED

date certitude

ANNOTATEDINSCRIBED

datelocuscertitude

DESCRIBED_IN dateitem no.

DESCRIBED_AS dateitem no.

Neo4j Data Model – relationship statements

Node Relationship NodeAGENT: Person GAVE OBJECT: Manuscript

AGENT: Organization SOLD OBJECT: Manuscript

OBJECT: Manuscript CONTAINS WORK: Text

AGENT: Person COMPOSED WORK: Text

PUBLICATION: Catalogue CONTAINS WORK: Description

OBJECT: Manuscript DESCRIBED_AS WORK: Description

AGENT: Organization PRODUCED PUBLICATION: Catalogue

WORK: Exhibition DESCRIBED_IN PUBLICATION: Catalogue

DATA MODEL – Nodegoat

Object Sub-objects Related to:

PERSON Nationality (country) ManuscriptTextCatalogue

ORGANIZATION Location (city; country) ManuscriptTextCatalogue

MANUSCRIPT SoldDonatedOwnedDescribed InProducedContents

Person/Organization: Agent, Owner, Buyer, Donor, Recipient, Scribe, Artist, ProducerLocation (city; country)CatalogueText

TEXT Person: AuthorManuscript

CATALOGUE

Organization: PublisherPerson: CompilerManuscript

Current status of the project

• Data imported: selections from Schoenberg data, other sample

data • Data Model: theoretical work + working versions• Demo versions of Neo4j and Nodegoat databases• Tested and documented queries, analyses and visualizations• To come:– Adding much more data in a production environment

(Nodegoat)– Carrying out more extensive visualizations and analyses• Across the whole collection• In relation to specific “use cases”

– Exporting data for reuse by other researchers

Dr Toby BurrowsMarie Curie FellowDepartment of Digital HumanitiesKing’s College London26-29 Drury LaneLondon WC2B 5RL

toby.burrows@kcl.ac.uk@tobyburrowstobyburrows.wordpress.com

Icms 2015 burrows

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