1. 1
Florence Paisey
Professor Paul Fyfe
Digital Humanities
Project Goals and Preparation for Research Collaboration
Florida State University’s Special Collections Department in the Strozier Library
houses the Carothers’ Memorial Bible Collection. This collection includes a number of
unusual, rare bibles; the earliest being the Latin Vulgate, translated into Greek and
printed in 1491 by the celebrated Swiss publisher, Froben. Froben and the humanist
scholar, Erasmus, were friends and worked closely together with Erasmus presiding over
translations of influential scholars. Erasmus also administered some printings of Froben,
including those of Ambrose and Poitiers. Included within the FSU Carothers’ Collection
is the Protestant, Geneva Bible – first printed in 1560 in Geneva due to English political
constraints while the Catholic Queen Mary reigned.
The Geneva Bible was the precursor to the King James Bible and the most influential
English bible printed before the King James version. Some of the most celebrated
English literary figures, such as Shakespeare, Milton, John Donne among many other
writers and scholars of the day were influenced by the text and based their religious
allusions and beliefs on the strongly Protestant and Calvinistic Geneva text.
Whittingham, the principal printer of the Geneva Bible, was a Protestant, English
biblical scholar and reformist whose scholarship was refined with his education at Oxford
University. Due to Queen Mary’s reign and Catholicism, Protestantism and all texts
related were prohibited, viewed as a felony under penalty of death – such was Tyndale’s

2. 2
fate. In consequence, Whittingham fled England, set up a printing shop in Basel,
Switzerland and together with spiritual advisors such as Calvin, translated the bible into
English and printed it together with Sampson and Gilby.
Features of the Geneva Bible that distinguished it from all other Bibles of its time
were the marginal notes that
interpreted scriptures for
commoners, its maps and
marginal notes
Estienne’s numbered verses.
Readers recognize verse numbers
now as a conventional, organizational element of a biblical page. However, the Geneva
Bible arranged
verse, for the
first time, with
numerical
ordering or
map
codification.
The Geneva
Bible was
chiefly printed
in roman letters,
although a few
editions were
also issued in blackletter. Its text was primarily based on the Tyndale and the Coverdale

3. 3
Bibles. The initial format was compact – a quarto – making its transport and portability
much easier than previous bibles produced as folios. Later editions of the Geneva Bible
were issued as octavos increasing its portability. As an instance of the Geneva Bible’s
influence and portability, Pilgrims traveling to the New World on the Mayflower carried
the Geneva Bible.
Although the technical systems for digitizing books have been explored extensively in
the literature, insufficient emphasis and understanding has been paid to transcribing full-
text, searchable texts with the provision of bibliographic evidence along with images and
electronic tools. Such data and tools provide evidentiary information with a view to
authenticating texts and identifying variants among editions, impressions and issues –
copy-specific information. In addition, copy-specific bibliographic information could
offer explicit, precise metadata to enhance accessibility through descriptive access points.
An online, scholarly presence of the Carothers Memorial Bible Collection would
provide a distinctive contribution to FSU’s Special Collections’ Department and its
capability to produce online, detailed descriptions of collections with granular
bibliographic information. Leading-edge electronic bibliographic tools intended to
compare editions, issues and variants among extant copies would be essential. Given that
2011 is the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible (KJB), exhibiting both a virtual
and physical exhibition of FSU’s Carother’s Collection is timely.
The virtual exhibition, initially, would involve displaying a high resolution, exemplar
image of the Geneva Bible such as the celebrated title page or a map. The image should
be contextualized with historical, theological, political, and bibliographic or textual
exposition along with biographical information regarding the printers, unusual features, a

4. 4
description of the significance of the image and contributions to early printing.
Contributions would particularly involve the mise-en-page, illustration, format and
typography – all integral elements of its historical significance and portability.
Instructional materials, including basic bibliographical vocabulary, book history, bible
production and transmission and provenance would also be advisable.
The history of illustration and typography in bibles has particular significance
theologically and politically. These elements could be underscored and contextualized
with other bibles, such as the Bishop’s Bible and the Rouen Bible. The TEI initiative
offers guidelines for encoding physical collations, providing scholars with initial access
to distinctions among editions, issues, transmission, dissemination and variant versions.
Online access to an exhibition focused on the theme of illustration and typography in
the Geneva Bible would offer analytical bibliographic information; digitized content;
transcribed text (caption), a print catalog and digital representation through a usable
interface that maps to historical, biographical, literary, and illustration-related context.
Ideally, links to finding aids for associated papers would provide supplementary context.
The project is far too extensive as a final term project, however the foundations of this
project can be initiated now with a view to extending and completing the project over the
next term.
The general process entails:
• A collection-level bibliographic record that classifies groups of volumes based
on MARC DCRM 2 (Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials). The ESTC
and EEBO provide this information in MARC format with options for concise
details of a work. EEBO provides a facsimile of the Geneva Bible.
• Explicit analytical bibliographic information encoded within TEI guidelines.

5. 5
• Formulating criteria for a unified selection – criteria will be based on users’
needs and interests, information-seeking behaviors, scholarly and educational
value, uniqueness or imaginative vision, and significance of illustration and
typography in early printed bibles.
• Providing Dublin Core (DC) bibliographic metadata with controlled
vocabularies endorsed by the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of the
American College and Research Libraries (ACRL).
• Digitizing an exemplar page (illustration) and recording bibliographic
description and textual variants and/or annotations in the associated MARC
record.