Beyond the Book project: quantitative data and collateral documents for Liverpool Reads

Quantitative data and collateral documents for the Liverpool portion of the AHRC-funded project ‘Beyond the Book: Mass Reading Events and Contemporary Cultures of Reading in the UK, USA and Canada’, (2005-2008, grant number: 112166), a three-year interdisciplinary project. The study researched a selection of 21st-century reading events which employ mass media (TV and radio) and city-wide reading projects which employ the ‘One Book, One Community’ model. The primary aims of the transnational study were to investigate how mass reading events configure contemporary practices of reading and the cultural meanings of reading at local, national and international levels; to explain the uses and complexities of reading communities in different locations; to identify and analyse trans-national trends and differences in contemporary reading cultures and reading practices; and, to critique the popular function of literary fiction. The file contains the merged data collected from an online survey of readers in Liverpool. Convenience sampling was employed. The survey was advertised through adverts in newspapers, on-line advertisements; flyers and bookmarks distributed through public library systems and cultural centres; via email through the research team’s formal and informal social and professional networks. The data includes reading choice, habits and practices; participation in broadcast and community book programming; and, basic demographic information (anonymised). The statistical data is deposited in both .csv and .por formats. Collateral material includes: Codebook; Data Notes; Meta Data Information Sheet and the Survey. Content was created between ca. 2007-02-19 and 2008-08-25. Content was saved 2008-10-31. http://www.beyondthebookproject.org

The Court of Chivalry 1634-1640

The Court of Chivalry web site has been created through a collaboration between the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies and the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, both at the University of Birmingham, and the College of Arms in London. Funding for the project was provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the research and editing of documents has been carried out at Birmingham by Professor Richard Cust and Dr Andrew Hopper. This project provides abstracts, calendars and transcript of the surviving material relating to 738 cases heard in the Court of Chivalry (otherwise known as the Court of Honour or the Earl Marshal’s Court) between 1634 and 1640. The original case papers are located at the College of Arms in London and the Earl Marshal’s archive at Arundel Castle, Sussex. The cases cover a wide variety of topics relating to the social, political and cultural history of the period, from ship money and the Bishops Wars to pew disputes and duelling, from heralds’ visitations and grants of arms to brawls in the street and quarrels at race meetings. The data archived here represent two standalone implementations of the original website launched in 2006 using the Anastasia software (.zip for Windows, .dmg for Mac) and an XML file containing the entire transcription of the court records. The online Anastasia site had to be taken down in 2015, and the present standalone files were created as an alternative. A searchable version of the material is currently available online at British History Online (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/court-of-chivalry) There is a companion volume, containing an account of the court’s history and summaries of the cases for this period: R.P. Cust and A.J. Hopper (eds), Cases in the High Court of Chivalry, 1634-1640 (Harleian Society, new series vol. 18, 2006

The Protevangelium Iacobi: transcriptions and apparatus

These are the XML files of the full-text transcriptions of three manuscripts of the Protevangelium Iacobi (Infancy Gospel of James): Bodmer V, Vatopedi 74 and Vindobonensis Palatina Hist. Gr. 61, together with an apparatus of the readings of these manuscripts, and of the transcriptions of Chapter 13 of this work in these three manuscripts and also Vatopedi 448, Vatopedi 636, Pantocrator 3, Sinai 497, Sinai 495, Sinai 519. The transcriptions were created in 2006 as a project for the MA in Electronic Scholarly Editing. An electronic edition of the Protevangelium Iacobi using these materials was published online at http://sd-editions.com/protevange