Extending Cultures of Knowledge

Existing Cultures of Knowledge projects do not exhaust the opportunities for research of this kind available in Oxford and elsewhere. On the contrary, they are intended to set the stage and provide proof of concept for further work, at the level of catalogues and general stocktaking, at the level of calendars and editions of significant figures, and in particular at the level of digital infrastructure. Below, we collate and summarise some areas particularly ripe for future development:

Digitizing Other Bodleian Catalogues

A more complete digital inventory of seventeenth-century manuscript correspondence in the Bodleian could be assembled in a second phase of work by adding to the digitised edition of the main card catalogue the data that comprise the Quarto Catalogues in a similarly accessible form.

Additional Calendars and Editions

The letters of other significant seventeenth-century intellectuals well represented in the Bodleian and British Libraries still await the kind of calendaring and editorial activities exemplified by the Project, which serve both to rescue manuscripts from overuse and to place their contents at the ready service of scholarship. The correspondence of the following figures, for example, might all be grafted onto Cultures of Knowledge: Kenelm Digby (1603-65); John Evelyn (1620-1706); Robert Hooke (1635-1703); and William Petty (1623-87).

Linking to Digital Catalogues Elsewhere

The digitization of the Bodleian catalogue raises the possibility of linking our nascent union catalogue with the digitized catalogues of manuscript correspondence in other libraries and archives with strong seventeenth-century collections.

Linking Digital Archives Elsewhere

In turn, the digitual archive of Comenius‘s correspondence suggests a further strategy: to link our database to other digital archives of texts or images of letters (printed or in manuscript) already available or planned for publication on the internet. These include those of Athanasius Kircher (1602-80); the Corpus Epistolicum Recentioris Aevi in Heidelberg; and the Hartlib Papers.

Linking Researchers Electronically

Finally, Cultures of Knowledge envisages coupling our union catalogue with a dedicated site for information exchange and research coordination. This will allow colleagues from elsewhere to enter their data into the catalogue (with vetting provided by an editorial committee). It will also enable associated scholars to notify colleagues of relevant conferences and publications, post notes and queries, request assistance, identify partners for collaboration, and coordinate international activities. Indeed, this digital resource would function rather like the ‘Office of Addresse for Communications’ which Samuel Hartlib and John Dury proposed to establish in Oxford in the late 1640s; a first step in this direction is represented by our News page.

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