The CESAR Project: interfacing between libraries and scholars
Barry Russell
The School of Languages
Oxford Brookes University (United Kingdom)
Les collections des arts du spectacle et leur traitement
Performing Arts Collections and their Treatment
24ème Congrès International
24st International Conference
Rome, 2-7 septembre 2002
Rome, September 2-7, 2002
Abstract
Theatre scholars worldwide need access to research materials
worldwide. The CESAR Project ("Calendrier Electronique des Spectacles sous l'Ancien
Régime") seeks to provide a bridge between scholars and performing arts collections,
specifically in relation to the study of French performing arts of the 17th and 18th
centuries.
In this presentation the project director, Barry Russell, will
discuss the origins, rationale, data structures, online features and future hopes of the
project. He will consider the problems of bringing together disparate materials into a
homogenous whole, of designing data structures for the performing arts that correspond to
what libraries and museums hold and what scholars need, and argue for the importance to
future research of large-scale, open-ended, interactive, international collaborative
ventures in which librarians, curators and scholars work side by side.
Background:
The CESAR Project began with a decision by a group of theatre
historians from Europe and North America to pool their individual resources and create a
common framework of reference. The project now enjoys substantial funding from the United
Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Board and from universities in the UK, France, Canada
and the USA.
Barry Russell is the author of the hypertext web site, Le
Théâtre de la foire à Paris (http://foires.net),
founder of the WWW Virtual Library for Theatre (http://vl-theatre.com),
and director of the CESAR Project (http://cesar.org.uk).
The project, currently under development, will be ready for its full public launch in
September 2002.
Barry RUSSELL, Barry@cesar.org.uk
The School of Languages
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford OX3 0BP
United Kingdom
24th Congress
URL: http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas2002/Rome15.htm
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