“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 recognised 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-colour facsimile, it will also be invaluable for researchers studying the development of printing and visual culture in the age of industrialisation 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 digitisation and cataloguing, including conservation costs associated with digitisation, 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:

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is a joint committee of the UK further and higher education funding bodies and is responsible for supporting the innovative use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support learning, teaching, and research. It is best known for providing the JANET network, a range of support, content and advisory services, and a portfolio of high-quality resources. For further information, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk or contact Philip Pothen on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk

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/

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.cambridgeinformationgroup.com.