First, membership in professional societies can provide some access to digital sources. For example, the AAR provides access to journals via JSTOR. For a limited time AAR membership also allows access to Bloomsbury/T&T Clark volumes. Membership in the Renaissance Society of America allows access to EEBO. Obviously the Post-Reformation Digital Library was conceived in part to address the need for digital access to primary source material. Many of these societies have reduced rates for student membership.

Second, you can register for limited access to some databases for free. For example, registering with JSTOR allows a certain number of free downloads and access to some content across the site. Similar programs are likely to be found with other databases and aggregators.

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has posted their Winter/Spring 2016 course schedule. Included is a graduate level, 3 credit hour Latin reading course in early modern Latin that runs from January 19, 2016 to May 6, 2016. We will meet on Monday and Thursday from 3:10 – 4:25 PM (EST). The primary focus of the course will center on Latin used in Theology and Philosophy from the early modern period, but matters of civil and canon law are addressed at several key points where relevant. We will be working through terminological and grammatical matters of scholastic Latin. As a secondary focus, we will address matters, as they occur, that intersect with research methodology and beginning paleography (early modern print and manuscripts, as well as diplomatics). Finally, we will discuss matters of transcription and preparation of a critical text. Class assignments will be selected readings in various genres as well as introductions to early modern reference materials and resources. Along the way, we will also discuss digitization of rare book sources as part of a student’s research process in conjunction with projects like PRDL and LEMPT at the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research. For ThM and PhD students, a component of the course is a dossier of translations around a core set of documents that will be determined by the student in conjunction with the professor. This dossier is intended to assist students in their ongoing research or in the development of further research interests for their degree requirements. Space is limited so start planning now. A couple of items for your information:

• If you want to take the graduate level course for credit in an accredited program, the cost is $750 (+$50 distance/online fee, if you will not be present in Grand Rapids, MI in person). PRTS is accredited by ATS & ARTS. ATS accreditation is accepted in the U.S. and Canada. For other countries, you would need to consult the registrar at your home academic institution.
• If you want to take the course as an audit, the cost is $180 (+$50 distance/online fee).
• If you register as a new student at PRTS, you have from Nov. 2 until the first day of class (Jan. 19) to register, although you need to allow for time to submit an entrance exam.
• If you are a returning student to PRTS, you have from Nov. 2 to Nov. 18 to register.
• If you have not taken the intensive Latin course at PRTS, applicants will need to successfully complete a timed entrance exam before being admitted to the class. If this exam will be proctored for distance students, please contact the registrar to make arrangements.
• This course will be streamed live via PRTS/Populi system with audio/video recordings of lectures available to students of the course.

For more information, please direct your inquiries to the registrar at PRTS, Jonathon Beeke, you can e-mail him or call him directly at (616)-432-3408. Stay tuned, the syllabus will be available through PRTS soon.

Here is a screencast of Dr. Van Raalte’s presentation from May 9, 2013, “Digitized Research Methods for Solving Pseudonymity: A New Discovery of Ten Volumes Printed under a Fictitious Name and Place in the 1580s.”

And for those with a deeper interest in these sorts of studies, the journal Quarendo has recently published an investigation of the identity of Spinoza’s printer.

Dr. Donald Sinnema

Last month Dr. Donald Sinnema, one of the general editors of the Synod of Dordrecht project, presented at the Junius Institute Colloquium on “The Project to Publish a Critical Edition of the Documents of the Synod of Dordt, 1618-19.”

Dr. Sinnema is a professor of theology emeritus at Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, IL. His main field of scholarship is historical theology, with a focus on Post-Reformation studies. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the Synod of Dordt, and he is currently one of three general editors working on producing a nine volume critical edition of all the documents of the Synod of Dordt (1618-19).

As the project describes, “Alongside the Westminster Assembly (1643-1649), the Synod of Dordrecht is one of the most important church councils in the history of the reformed tradition.” Moreover, “The goal of the edition project is to produce a critical edition of all the documents of the Synod of Dordrecht in their original languages (predominantly Latin, but some in Dutch, English, German and French) by an international team of institutions and scholars, mostly partners of Refo500. This critical edition will be published by publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht as a multi-volume series, and will be made available in digital format as well.”

A screencast of Dr. Sinnema’s presentation with audio is embedded below. More information about the project is available at the Refo500 website, where interested scholars can find more details about how to get involved.

Of special note is a CFP for “Early Modern + Digital Projects and Computational Methods.” I have been pleased to see a slow development in recent years of digitally-themed presentations and panels at SCSC, and this CFP promises to help continue that positive momentum.

Be sure to check out the “Call For Papers, Panels and Posters,” and stay tuned for details on presentation plans for a session or two sponsored by the Junius Institute.

I have been fiddling with early Calvin, and these are the texts noted by Thurot as typically being used in the University of Paris in the late Middle Ages in the first two grades of preparatory grammatical study.

According to Thurot, Donatus and Cato were the first grade level of the preparatory study, Alexandre the second, and Peter of Spain’s Summulae logicales (which we already have in PRDL) was the third of the three degrees or levels. And, by the way, Charles Thurot, De l’organisation de l’enseignement dans l’Université de Paris au Moyen-Âge (Paris: Dezorby, 1850) is available from Google Books. There is, of course, more recent scholarship but Thurot is still worth consulting.

By all accounts, the 12-13 year-olds who got through this course without particular mental damage were quite proficient, albeit not singing, “Peter of Spain, I adore you.”

Now you can prep your Latin using the texts that Calvin probably used. Check out the annotated Alexandre and ask whether any of us could pass the course!

With most of Google’s partner libraries, it is impossible to know what books are in the process of being digitized. However, the KB catalogue offers a glimpse of books currently tagged for digitization. In order to inform its patrons that a book has been pulled from the shelf, the librarians at KB have added a note: “This book is temporarily unavailable due to digitization.” (“Dit boek is tijdelijk niet beschikbaar vanwege digitalisering.”) A search for this phrase turns up books in the catalogue that either have been recently digitized or will be digitized in the coming months. As of today, there are in the queue over 38,000 titles from the eighteenth century (1700-1799) and 13,000 titles from the nineteenth century (1800-1899).

For users of the Junius Institute’s Post-Reformation Digital Library, this means that in the coming months the collection of available eighteenth-century Dutch theological works is set to rapidly expand. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of theological works from Dutch Reformed authors will become available in a relatively short period of time. Among these are numerous works by pastors associated with the so-called Nadere Reformatie or “Further Reformation,” including multiple editions of Aegidius Francken’s Kern der Christelyke Leere, which served as a textbook at Calvin Theological Seminary in the nineteenth century. Below is a sampling of links to Reformed theologians with titles set aside to be digitized in the KB catalogue. Taken together, this short list alone represents over 500 digitized titles on the horizon.

Leiden Professors:

• Johannes Marckius (1656-1731) [16 works]
• Herman Witsius (1636-1708) [11 works]
• Salomon Van Til (1643-1713) [9 works]
• Johannes Wesselius (1671-1745) [14 works]
• Taco Hajo van den Honert (1666-1740) [13 works]
• Albert Schultens (1686-1750) [25 works]
• Johan van den Honert (1693-1758) [61 works]
• Bernhard De Moor (1709-1780) [15 works]
• Ewald Hollebeek (1719-1796) [15 works]

Utrecht Professors:

• Melchior Leydekker (1642-1721) [9 works]
• Herman Witsius (1636-1708) [11 works]
• Hermann Alexander Röell (1653-1718) [2 works]
• Hieronymus Simons van Alphen (1665-1742) [12 works]
• Friedrich Adolph Lampe (1683-1729) [18 works]
• Albertus Voget (1695-1771) [7 works]
• Willem van Irhoven (1698-1760) [7 works]

Franeker Professors:

• Campegius Vitringa, Sr (1659-1722) [13 works]
• Ruard Andala (1665-1727) [3 works]
• Herman Venema (1697-1787) [18 works]

Groningen Professors:

• Paulus Hulsius (1653-1712) [4 works]
• Antonius Driessen (1684-1748) [18 works]
• Cornelius van Velzen (1696-1752) [15 works]
• Daniel Gerdes (1698-1765) [10 works]

Nadere Reformatie Pastors:

• Jodocus van Lodenstein (1620-1677) [14 works]
• Franciscus Ridderus (1620-1683) [8 works]
• Willem Sluiter (1627-1673) [41 works]
• Jacobus Koelman (1631-1695) [18 works]
• Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711) [18 works]
• Abraham Hellenbroek (1658-1731) [16 works]
• Jacobus Fruytier (1659-1731) [15 works]
• Bernardus Smytegelt (1665-1739) [16 works]
• Johan Verschuir (1680-1737) [5 works]
• Aegidius Francken (1699-1743) [15 works]
• Wilhelmus Schortinghuis (1700-1750) [7 works]
• Theodorus van der Groe (1705-1784) [13 works]
• Alexander Comrie (1706-1774) [13 works]

So, if you don’t have regular access, take the time now to go get, for instance, Richard A. Muller’s “Not Scotist: Understandings of being, univocity, and analogy in early-modern Reformed thought” from the latest RRR. [Update: You’ll need to sign up to get access to Maney’s journals first at the “details” link above. Then you should have access to RRR content, including Muller’s article.] It won’t be available during the free period, but I’m also the guest editor for a forthcoming issue of RRR on the legacy of the Italian reformer, Peter Martyr Vermigli. So keep a lookout for that.

Also, the Renaissance Society of America has announced that its members will now have full access to EEBO. So for the price of RSA membership, you can get access to this important primary source collection.

He then went digging through some old emails, and found that the original finding list that would grow to become the PRDL, first in wiki and later in the current PRDL 2.0 format, was circulated in October 2008, just over five years ago. You can read more about the transition and development of PRDL in this piece from the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.

David, who directs the PRDL project, writes further, “Looking back through the email thread, it was Jordan who suggested on Nov. 7 that we start a wiki and think about forming a digital research center.” So this day a sort of informal five year anniversary for the beginning of the PRDL and now the Junius Institute!

PRDL now covers over 4,500 authors, with listings of more than 85,000 volumes. Take a look at the original finding list to see where it all began, a short five years ago.

Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 1480), via e-codices iPad app

I recently got notice of two new apps developed for iOS, and ideally experienced on the iPad. The first is the Europeana Open Culture app for the iPad which “introduces you to specially selected collections from Europeana.” Europeana has come a long way, in my view, since it’s opening, and it will be interesting to see how this app makes the vast resources theoretically available at the site actually useful.

The second notice came in today from e-codices, the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. The e-codices app has been developed for the iPad and iPhone, and will allow you to “search, browse and view medieval and early modern manuscripts in high resolution” on these devices.

My initial experience with these apps has been a bit buggy and inconsistent, but there are some really promising possibilities for display while travelling, giving lectures, presenting papers, and teaching in the classroom. Right now my impression is that the apps might be most helpful for displaying digital texts that you are already aware of rather than really finding new things.