American Numismatic Society Digital Publications Project

American Numismatic Society Digital Publications Project

(Please direct questions to Sebastian Heath, <heath @ numismatics.org>)The American Numismatic Society is developing an infrastructure for the digital publication of numismatic catalogs, exhibitions, articles, and other materials. As a general rule, this system will take advantage of existing standards and tools whenever possible. This means that texts will be encoded using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and that the Text Encoding Initiative's (TEI) xml dtd's and schemas will be used where appropriate. Further information about the TEI is available at its web site. There are many good starting points for learning about xml, including www.xml.org and the much more technical World Wide Web consortium's xml site.

Current Initiatives

• nomisma.org is an effort to provide stable digital surrogates (URIs) for well-known numismatic concepts.
• Numismatic Literature: This is the on-line continuation of the Society's annual listing of numismatic titles. Bibliographic information is entered directly into xml files conforming to an ad-hoc dtd. These files are then rendered into html for delivery via the web and into xsl:fo for the production of pdf's that are then printed as soft-bound volumes.
• "Drachmas, Doubloons, and Dollars: The History of Money": Was exhibited at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. All the text from the labels and panels has been collected into an XML document using an ad-hoc dtd. An automatically generated html version is available as part of the main ANS web-site:
  • HTML-formatted. (The case titles link into an online presentation of the gallery's content.)
• Sylloge of the Islamic Glass Weights in the Gayer-Anderson Museum, Cairo: This USAID funded project is preparing a complete catalog of the stamped glass weights, vessel stamps and ring weights in the museum.
  • HTML-formatted searchable catalog.
• John H. Kroll and Sebastian Heath (2002), "The British Museum Lot of Silver from the Taranto 1911 Hoard (Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards [1973], no. 1874)": Presenting the uncoined silver from this hoard. The following versions are available:
  • HTML-formatted.
  • HTML-formatted with in-line images.
  • TEI-conformant xml version.
• Introduction to Numismatic Terms and Methods: This document is required reading for students in the ANS' summer seminar. Two versions are available:
  • HTML-formatted for viewing in web browsers.
  • TEI-conformant xml version. (Conversion to TEI is in progress)

Non-XML Files

• Ancient Coins & The Cultural Property Debate: The ANS has a long tradition of scholarly numismatic research and publication, often based upon the availability of information about the source of ancient coins, and thus supports efforts to preserve contextual information. On the other hand, much of the membership of the ANS consists of coin collectors and dealers, who have a strong interest in preserving the right to collect ancient coins.
  • Ancient Coins and the Cultural Property Debate - Sebastian Heath; with an Introduction by Rick Witschonke; From ANS Magazine 2011 Issue #2
  • Ancient Coins and the Cultural Property Debate - Peter K. Tompa; with an Introduction by Rick Witschonke; From ANS Magazine 2011 Issue #3
• Plates and Script Tables for Michael C.A. Macdonald, "The 'Abiel' Coins of Eastern Arabia: A Study of the Aramaic Legends"
  • McDonald Plates - Part A (large file 13MB)
  • McDonald Plates - Part B (large file 12MB)
• The History of Coins in Romania: In conjuction with the National Bank of Romania, the American Numismatic Society is pleased to make available the text of "The History of Coins in Romania" by Octavian Iliescu.
  • Octavian Iliescu, The History of Coinage in Romania, Bucharest (2002).