This project works to digitize and create item-level metadata for pre-1600 manuscripts held at institutions of all types across the American Midwest. Hosted at Indiana University Bloomington, our efforts have been generously supported by a 2020 Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections grant and a 2025 Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Resulting item descriptions and high-resolution, IIIF-compliant images are being made freely available through a digital consortial repository hosted by Indiana University Libraries.
For more information about the project, including information about out partners, visit: https://peripheralmss.org/.
This GitHub repository hosts some project files for which we want to maintain a clear record of file history. For now, this is mostly limited to our project documentation.
Our metadata documentation is based on the metadata practices of the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis Project. There are three principal files (in development):
- Style Guide. General guidelines for style, usage, and terminology
- Metadata Guide. Line-item instructions for entry of collection- and item-level metadata.
- Metadata Sharing Guide for Partners. Metadata mapping between OCHRE (canonical database), Digital Collections repository and MARC.
We have digitization guidelines and template Memoranda of Understanding and Care Agreements for the project:
- Digitization Guidelines
- MOU and Care Agreement for Digitization led by Indiana University Libraries
- MOU for Digitiztion led by Partners
Included are selected grant materials for Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Collections grant and Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: