Transcript An Implementation of Photograph Archive Database

Digitization of mathematical
textbooks used in Serbia in the
past
Nadežda Pejović
[email protected]
University of Belgrade
Faculty of Mathematics
3rd SEEDI Int. Conf.
Cetinje, Montenegro
13-14 September 2007.
The Project
 The part of the ongoing digitization
project of the scientific and cultural
heritage
 Institutions:
• The Faculty of Mathematics, University of
Belgrade
• The Mathematical Institute of Serbian
Academy of Sciences
The goal of the project
 To digitize the most important Serbian
textbooks used in the secondary and
undergraduate education in the past.
 To help historians of education and
educators for better studies of
education, modern and in the past.
 To remove some myths, “The current
education and textbooks are much
better than those used in the past”.
Problems
 Significant variations in materials
sources and qualities
 The data and metadata organization
and modeling
 Data access
Technical issues
 Stored in the Virtual library of NCD
www.ncd.matf.bg.ac.yu
-> Projects -> Virtual library
 Formats
• Image format: tiff 300 dpi
• Target format: PDF, DJvu
OCR
 Primary problems are :
• Large varieties and high font stylization
used in the corresponding time period.
• Significantly low material quality, because of
aging. No OCR software satisfied, primarily
because of the low material readability.
• A lot of mathematical formulas, there is not
OCR software capable of recognizing
mathematically oriented texts.
Searching
 The multiple criteria for searching are
available, including searching by
o Metadata
• Author
• Title
• Key words
• Period
o The text content, on texts where OCR was
performed.
Digitized textbooks
 Vasilije Damjanović, Aritmetika,
Venice, 1767
• Area: mathematics.
• The first mathematical textbook
written in Serbian.
• Used in diaspora, mainly in parts of
Austrian-Hungarian Imperia.
Digitized textbooks
 Jovan Došenović, Čislenica,
Budim (Budapest), 1809
• Area: mathematics
• Text dealing with basic arithmetical
operations, percentage calculus,
quotients etc.
• The first textbook in mathematics used
in liberated Belgrade after the First
Serbian Upraising, 1804, against
Ottoman Imperia.
Digitized textbooks
 Milan Andonović, Kosmografija,
Belgrade, 1888.
• Area: astronomy
• Rigorous presentation of modern
astronomy at the time of writing the
book.
• Very nice style of writing, a book worth
reading even today.
• Nice drawings and color illustrations.
Digitized textbooks
 Rista Karljiković, Trigonometry,
Belgrade, 1926.
• Area: mathematics
• One of the finest mathematical textbooks for
high-schools written in Serbian.
• Advanced topics: spherical trigonometry,
applications in geodesy and astronomy.
• Many historical notes, origin of mathematical
notions and problems, sources of presented
problems.