The English Emblem Book Project

Maintained by various faculty and library staff at Penn State, the English Emblem Book Project aims to digitize the 'core' of the university's collection of English emblem books. It's a valuable project, and the books are striking (if you've never looked at emblem books before, you should take a look; it's a pretty powerful form of instruction), but it seems to only go half-way towards its potential as a scholarly resource.

1. Selection Decisions
There's little mentioned about the selection procedure. In fact, it's never mentioned explicitly which collection these books come from, though it's possible, by looking at the credits and what little introductory material is provided, to assume that they were determined, most likely by the Penn State scholars involved with the project, to be the 'core' volumes in the university's collection. There is no historical or cultural context given for the books themselves, but a very brief introduction to the importance of emblem books as scholarly sources is given.

2. Metadata
Full title, author, and publication data is given (as presented on the title page), as well as a detailed collation. General notes are provided about the book itself and anything of special note about the scans (though these notes are brief, fairly casual, and inconsistent), and detailed scanner settings are given for each book.

3. Object Characteristics
The scans vary in clarity. A single scanner setting seems to have been used throughout the scanning of each book, regardless of varying page contrasts, degradation of the images, etc. The images are given in one size, which is adequate for reading and getting a sense of the emblem riddles, but is not appropriate for any detailed scholarly work.

4. Audience
Given that the full content of these books is presented, they're presumably being presented as appropriate for study, rather than simply advertising highlights of the school's collection. The introduction seems aimed at a lay audience, however, and it might be hoped that these books would serve as an introduction to the study of or interest in emblem books in general. Again, as with the Apiculture site, this exhibit seems to exists somewhere in-between general introduction and scholarly resource.