NLR Literary Landmarks
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  3. Ostromir Gospels
  4. About the Project

Ostromir Gospel

Ostromir Gospel
The Ostromir Gospel online resource continues the National Library of Russia's programme to digitise Russian cultural and historical heritage. The programme began in 2013 with the Laurentian Codex of 1377 online resource. It made available electronic versions of the most important manuscripts to the public and researchers.

The tenth project of the series deals with the oldest surviving dated East Slavonic manuscript book. The project was launched on the International Day of Slavonic Writing and marked the anniversary of the manuscript.

The digital edition of the Ostromir Gospel was produced with use of the Depositary Information Retrieval System, developed by the specialists of the National Library of Russia to form an electronic database of the manuscript colections. This search system makes it possiple to link digital pages of a manuscript with the relevant information from the database.

The presented online resource are a valuable source for the general public, students and researchers.

The Depositary Information Retrieval System was developed by the specialists of the National Library of Russia to form an electronic database of the manuscript colections. This search system makes it possiple to link digital pages of a manuscript with the relevant information from the database. The system is used as a multifunctional resource when working with manuscripts — starting from registration and scientific description of the manuscript in an electronic database and ending with an electronic copy of the manuscript or collection on the Internet.

Software development kits: MS Visual C#, DBMS MS SQL Server 2008 R2.

The Depository System is predicated on the idea that each handwritten book is not only a source of information, but a monument of written culture. Therefore, the manuscript must be studied and described comprehensively — both in terms of the content and as an object of material culture. In accordance with this, the Depository System consists of fields that enable to register and provide search for all important elements of the cataloged manuscript. The essential part of the Depository System are basic directories that ensure unified terminology and efficient search.

The Depository System is based on the two-hundred-year tradition of Russian archeography. The systemt implements principles of "reliability in working with manuscripts", which were put forward by academician D. S. Likhachev ( see: Likhachev D. S. Textology (rus Tekstologiya). Leningrad, "Nauka", 1983. Pp. 114–116) as the most important for modern source study.

The practical basis for the system was the RUSMARC bibliographic format adopted by the National Library of Russia. At the same time, detailed structured-field information of the database allows you to convert data into any standard, as well as "upload" one or another selected set of data for various Internet projects, in particular, enter data into the electronic on-line catalogue of the library.