History of a book project. “Patrimonio culturale, ingegno e tecnologia: dall’energia muscolare all’energia atomica verso l’energia pulita e rinnovabile” in the CNR IRCrES books

Abstract

In this paper the first report of a cultural enhancement project regarding the ancient and specialized book patrimony kept in the Library of the CNR IRCrES Institute of Genoa. The collection consists of more than two hundred ancient volumes about technical and scientific subjects, a portion of which, about twenty, deals with issues related to mechanics and to energy sources applicable to it. The project involves digitization and systematization in an interactive repository of the ancient volumes, which can be freely read and downloaded from the net by everyone. Thanks to the multimedia technologies, the project entails the implementation of an interactive and user friendly software for reusing the digitized pages. Among the reuse options, it has been implemented a search-way for theme inquiries, for keywords enquiries; besides, animations of the machines drawn within the texts there have been implemented to show and exemplify their mechanics and functionality. The occasion was due to an announcement of the Compagnia di San Paolo, which has funded digitization, the incrementation of the DigiBESS portal and the implementation of the software for the multimedia station.