Goals
Monasterium.Net
...stands for
...stands for
- … Independence from time and space: Original documents available world wide 24 hours a day, independent of the researcher’s physical location.
- … Overcoming Barriers:Historical sources available to people around the world, without regard to their residence, first language, or social status. Engagement with the original historical sources helps to break down physical, cultural and mentality barriers.
- … Application of most modern Technologies: “old” documents meet “new” technologies, and with their help make possible a new look into the past.
- … The Highest Standards of Scholarship:International standards for digital scholarship using primary sources have been established in the Charters Encoding Initiative, and continue to be developed in the context of international research.
- … “Critical Mass”: with more than 100.000 primary sources online, Monasterium.net has established the breadth needed to show a “critical mass.” For some regions of Europe (ex. Vorarlberg), already 90-100% of primary sources related to the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period have been established online.
- … International Network:Beyond the virtual archive stands a Consortium of more than 50 institutions from 10 countries, connecting and expanding their knowledge and experience. This presents the largest platform of its kind for European archival knowledge.
- … Efficient Strategies:The association of digital media necessitates the use of different strategies and media than was the case with print media. This makes it possible to open scholastic work on various stages of development. Editions and summarizations that do not meet one hundred percent with high standards of scholarship (and so were never before printed) now have a completely new value. In connection with copying the handwritten original work, they are now perfect not as only good search tools, but also as valuable points of departure for broader collaborative studies.
- … Continuum per se:a virtual archive like Monasterium.net will never be “finished” or “complete”, but rather is conceived as being always in motion and further development.
