Megan Fenselau of the American Numismatic Society forwarded this press release about a new database search capability on the organizations web site.
-Editor
American Numismatic Society Director Ute Wartenberg Kagan today unveiled
the new interactive ANS collection search tool,
MANTIS (Mantis: A Numismatic
Technologies Integration Service) provides access to all 600,000 records
for objects in the ANS collection, through a series of new, easy-to-use
search screens.
The new search tool is an open source implementation of several
applications used in the Library, Archive, and Museum communities,
including Apache Solr for faceted searching. The tool enables users to
interact with the ANS collection through keyword searches or by browsing
and sorting on numerous categorical and physical attributes common to
numismatics. This search tool connects individual objects together by
these searchable attributes, allowing users to seamlessly navigate from
one object to its relations.
ANS Director Wartenberg explains, "The collections database is the work
of a generation of expert cataloguers, and was originally designed to
allow curatorial staff to manage the massive holdings of the
Society.MANTIS marks a huge leap forward in making this work available
to the general public in a way that is easy to understand for specialist
and non-specialist alike. Together with DONUM, our bibliographic search
tool, the release of MANTIS places the ANS at the forefront of
numismatic research on the World Wide Web."
The Database breaks down into 11 Departments, which can be searched as a
whole or individually.Approximate totals for each department are as follows:
Greek 100, 000
Roman 80, 000
Byzantine 15, 000
Islamic 60, 000
East Asian 45, 000
South Asian 50, 000
Medieval 50, 000
Modern 100, 000
United States 25, 000
Latin America 20, 000
Medals and Decorations 50, 000
Traditional searches by mint person, date and numismatic categories are
catered for, and supplemented with a new map interface.This latter
feature, still under development, will eventually allow the user to find
coins, medals and banknotes issues around the world by clicking on
points on a map.
"The release of the new research tool is an exciting development, not
just for the access it provides to our remarkable collection," notes ANS
Deputy Director Andrew Meadows. "It also harnesses an ANS initiative to
create stable identities for numismatic concepts on the World Wide Web
through the nomisma.org project.This is most visible at the moment in
the mapping functions that we offer, but will ultimately extend to the
creation of other exciting new tools."
The design of MANTIS is the work of ANS Web Developer Ethan Gruber,
working in close collaboration with ANS Research Scientist Sebastian Heath.
Heath explains: "The new ANS database is now positioned to become a tool
for expressing all the links inherent in each individual coin. We can
already see this in the powerful mapping function. Even at this early
stage of development users can browse the Greek and Roman departments by
geography, with an expanding set of North American mints also coming
available. It's already possible to make maps of similar coins, such as
those showing Greek and Roman deities, and this functionality will
become available for more coins as Ethan Gruber continues his work. The
database also supports a variety of export formats that will encourage
exploration of the links between numismatics and other disciplines.
Underlying much of our work is a technical approach called 'Linked Open
Data'. As the humanities increasingly embrace digital tools, researchers
of all stripes can be confident that the ANS is bringing exceptional
resources into their domains."
To read the complete article, see:
American Numismatic Society Collection Database
(numismatics.org/search/)
To read the complete press release, see:
AMERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY UNVEILS MANTIS: A MAJOR NUMISMATIC RESEARCH TOOL
(numismatics.org/wikiuploads/NewsEvents/MantisPressRelease1.pdf)
Wayne Homren, Editor
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor
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