Visualization in the Field of Description of the Rare Book

Abstract

In the field of description of the old book, the visualization is used to facilitate the revelation of various aspects of the literacy performance. The visual methods and techniques may relate both to the graphical presentation of the data requiring interpretation and to the results of the analyzes. The selection of appropriate graphic solutions heavily depends on the intended purpose of the presentation of data, particularly educational, scientific or artistic ones. For educational purposes, the illustrations as well as the spatial and interactive visualizations are the most commonly used. Within the scientific research the visualization of information is of particular importance in the case of the graphic representation of the large collections of old books. The projects of the Bibliothèque virtuelle du Mont Saint-Michel, the 15cBOOKTRADE and The Atlas of Early Printing are discussed in the paper. The visualization also refers to the infographics on which the illustrations from manuscripts and old prints are  presented and explained in an artistic way.