The library of Brothers Grimm fairy tales is to be digitized.
"The books, of which around 700 relate to the Brothers Grimm 'Children's and Household Tales,' are particularly valuable because of the traces of their workings they contain," the University of Kassel announced on Tuesday.
The Grimms crossed out text passages in the books they analysed for the "Children's and Household Tales," made handwritten notes in the margins and inserted notes on scraps of paper.
Until now, anyone seeking access to these culturally and historically significant sources has had to rely on the originals.
The interdisciplinary project "Digital Fairy Tale Reference Library of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm" focuses on the identification, transcription and linking of the numerous handwritten notes, in addition to the full-text indexing of the printed texts.
This is a particular challenge: "The automatic methods developed to date for font and layout recognition are not capable of producing usable full texts of annotated prints and simultaneously evaluating handwritten artefacts," the university said.
In addition to the University of Kassel, researchers from the Julius Maximilian University (JMU) in Würzburg and the university library of the Humboldt University in Berlin, where most of the private library of the Brothers Grimm is located, are also involved.
All project results are to be made publicly accessible online and made available for further use. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the three-year project, which is due to start on September 1.
The collection of "Children's and Household Tales" compiled by the folklorists and linguists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is one of the most famous works of world literature.