New digitised manuscripts available now

[Gunthard Mueller]

Dear colleagues,
just to inform you that we have started publishing
some significant new manuscripts, including the
famous Atharva-Veda manuscript from the University
Library at Tübingen (PaippalAda recension/Kashmir,
,SAradA script, birch bark, very large, beautiful manuscript).
Please check out our updated www.e-ternals.com site.

Also available now: a hitherto unpublished
manuscript, probably by Nampillai.
The Tattva-viveka by Pillai Lokacharya is now also
available in full resolution quality, for libraries,
archives and people with really huge machines...
In future, we will publish as much as we can
in two versions:
(1) Full-resolution (up to 400 MB per image),
for libraries, archives, museums, research centres,
(2) Multimedia-enhanced versions with our
special manuscript-reading software, resolution
reduced in such a way that individual fibres can
be seen, but not almost microscopic like the full
resolution. This version loads pages very fast,
even from the CD, and contains software for
zooming in and out very swiftly, moving the page
on the screen, turning pages, etc.

We are now also starting to publish meta-data,
transliterations/transcriptions, translations,
critical editions and secondary literature.

This will include some so far unpublished works
by Rudolph Roth, also held in the University Library
of Tübingen.

Other scholars and researchers interested in contributing work
are cordially invited to contact me directly to discuss possibilities.

We would also like to announce that we have developed an
algorithm for digitally blackening palm leaves.
This algorithm works with ALL palm-leaf manuscripts.
Physical blackening is destructive. It also has to be repeated
regularly. Our algorithm beautifully "blackens" the palm-leaf
text non-intrusively. We are able to perform this painless operation
within seconds, and we will now offer blackened versions of
physically unblackened palm leaf manuscripts, in addition to
the "authentic" ones. The blackened versions are easier to read,
while the authentic versions give you the security you need for
creating critical editions.
Positive side-effect: we are now able to PRINT such manuscripts
as well. I believe this is a first! Reproduction was so far not
possible,
unless the manuscript was physically blackened before--which eventually
destroys it and counteracts the principle of non-intrusive publishing.

Finally, we would like to report successful completion of
a micro-film digitisation project done for the German National
Library in Berlin. We are now able to digitise micro-film,
even material that is already decaying and cannot be read any more
with the usual micro-film reading/printing equipment.
Of course the quality is not comparable to digitisation directly
from the original, but in many cases manuscripts have vanished after
micro-filming, or there are no possibilities to digitise them in
addition.
In such cases it seems reasonable to digitise the micro-film.
We would like to draw your attention to the fact that enormous
quantities of micro-film even in very reputable institutions in the US,
the UK, France and Germany have already degraded beyond
useability.

We would also like to announce the beginning of the second stage of
e-ternals.com project Guarnieri (sounds good, doesn't it...).
This project develops a special software for performing music directly
from
digitised facsimile.

We invite institutions and individuals who own manuscripts
to partner with us in digitising and publishing.

We are also interested in finding people who have successfully
digitised material but find it hard to publish it.

We are also looking for sponsors interested in contributing
towards digitisation of heritage materials.

Please contact me directly if you are also working in this
area and would like to find out if there are possibilities for
cooperation.

With kind regards,
Gunthard

Gunthard Mueller
e-ternals.com
Unter den Linden 15
72762 Reutlingen
Germany
Phone: +49-7121-370411
Fax: +49-7121-336988
gm at e-ternals.com