ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 5, 2007 - The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that it will be funding a unique partnership between ProQuest CSA and Oxford University Library Services (OULS) to digitize more than 65,000 items from the Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. The ProQuest CSA/OULS proposal was selected from among 49 bids for funding, submitted following the JISC's Digitization Town Meeting on 21 April, 2006.

"The Electronic Ephemera project will make available to researchers deep resources relating to British social and cultural history found in the Bodleian's John Johnson Collection," said Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special Collections (Associate Director) at the Bodleian Library. "The material which will be included in the project consists of exceptionally rare survivals of the kind of advertising and promotional literature that permeated British culture in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries but has survived only sporadically in a few major collections of ephemera. Scholars from many disciplines are now discovering the huge research potential of this material, and we are proud to be working with JISC and ProQuest CSA to make this material more accessible."

Housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the John Johnson Collection is widely recognized as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world, and generally regarded as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK. Containing 1.5 million items ranging in date from 1508-1939, it spans the entire range of printing and social history. It was assembled by John de Monins Johnson (1882-1956), Printer to the University, who was visionary in his preservation of Britain's vulnerable paper heritage.  It contains a high proportion of unique material, which has remained largely hidden to scholars and researchers.
 
The project will make available a wide array of rare or unique archival materials documenting various aspects of everyday life in Britain in the nineteenth century and before. The collection features posters and handbills for theatrical and non-theatrical entertainments, broadsides relating to murders and executions, book prospectuses, popular topographical prints, and a wealth of different kinds of printed advertising material.  The collection will form an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the histories of consumption, leisure, gender, popular and commerce. As each item will be presented as a full-color facsimile, it will also be invaluable for researchers studying the development of printing and visual culture in the age of industrialization and mass advertising.
 
The project will make a selection of materials from the John Johnson Collection available throughout the UK.  Investment by the JISC and OULS will cover the costs of digitization and cataloguing, including conservation costs associated with digitization, while ProQuest CSA will bear the cost of interface development and long-term sustainability.
 
The online collection will consist of five different categories of material:
Nineteenth century entertainment material - featuring theatre material and non-theatrical material, this category of material provides a wealth of insights into popular and high-culture leisure activities during the nineteenth century. 

Booktrade material - examples include publishing material (e.g. prospectuses of books and journals) and bookplates. The former items will be of interest to anyone studying the history of the publishing industry, or the reception of certain kinds of thought or learning during the period; the latter will prove invaluable to those interested in the provenance of books, or in design history.

Popular prints - these items provide an invaluable record of locations and landscapes, architecture, popular tastes and appetites for artistic works and topography.

Crime, Murders, and Executions - a mixture of single sheets and pamphlets. These resources give insights into the judicial system, and punishment, notably the application of the death penalty and of transportation. The Murders and Executions broadsides are currently highly popular with a variety of researchers (women and crime, iconography of the woodcuts, etc).
 
Advertising - social and economic historians, historians of popular culture, trades and industries, students of typographic design and many others will find that these items offer important insights into the past.
 

About ProQuest
ProQuest creates specialized information resources and technologies that propel successful research, discovery, and lifelong learning. A global leader in serving libraries of all types, ProQuest offers the expertise of such respected brands as Chadwyck-Healey™, UMI®, SIRS®, and eLibrary®. With Serials Solutions®, Ulrich's™, RefWorks®, COS™, Dialog® and now Bowker® part of the ProQuest brand family, the company supports the breadth of the information community with innovative discovery solutions that power the business of books and the best in research experience.

More than a content provider or aggregator, ProQuest is an information partner, creating indispensable research solutions that connect people and information. Through innovative, user-centered discovery technology, ProQuest offers billions of pages of global content that includes historical newspapers, dissertations, and uniquely relevant resources for researchers of any age and sophistication—including content not likely to be digitized by others. Inspired by its customers and their end users, ProQuest is working toward a future that blends information accessibility with community to further enhance learning and encourage lifelong enrichment.

For more information, visit www.proquest.com or the ProQuest parent company website, www.cig.com.

About JISC
JISC's activities support education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT services. JISC funds a wide range of projects, services, developments and infrastructure. Most of these initiatives originate from a successful response to a circular or tender, inviting organisations to bid for funding. For more information about JISC, visit www.jisc.ac.uk

About the Bodleian Library, Oxford University
The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is also a copyright deposit library and its collections are used by scholars from around the world. For more information visit:
www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/