Occult books digitized (The Ritman Library)

[patrik]

Among others Dan Brown has sponsored the digitizing of the really, really old books.

https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/...n%22&reverse=0

I wonder how to make them into epubs... (Besides screengrabs into FineReader...)

Spoiler:

ABOUT THE LIBRARY
The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and the House with the Heads are inseparably linked with Amsterdam and its history of tolerance, freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

The library is a treasure house and a knowledge centre of the tradition of Christian-Hermetic Gnosis in Europe. As a ‘House of Living Books’ it tells the many-faceted, eventful and still largely unknown story of this spiritual tradition, in which self-knowledge and knowledge of nature provide the key to achieve knowledge of God.The Ritman Library made an international name for itself as a scholarly research library with its research institute, publishing house, its collection of some 25,000 titles and its wide range of activities.Hermes Trismegistus, Father of the Philosophers, is the primal source for this knowledge about the unity of all things: ‘He who contemplates himself with his mind, knows himself, and knows the All; the All is in man’. Each book tells this story in a different way, but together they express unity in diversity.

Digitization

The core collection of 5,000 books and 300 manuscripts dating from the 15th-18th centuries is being digitized and is already partly accessible online worldwide. The digitization of the collection has been made possible by bestseller author Dan Brown and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Reading room

In the supervised reading room researchers will be able to consult manuscripts and printed books prior to 1900 in conjunction with the latest scholarly insights provided by recent publications. Visitors will be able to browse and read the 20,000 works on the open shelves, or study in an atmosphere of concentrated knowledge and wisdom. The library programme will include reading groups and other activities.

[HarryT]

I can't make that site work at all. Not a terribly obvious user interface!

[patrik]

Yeah it's not the most user friendly. Not easy to find something unless you already know a lot to search for.

But... can't you get to a book?

Does this link work?

https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/...01764%7D%20asc

[HarryT]

Thanks - that worked. I don't know what I was doing wrong before, but all I got was a screen filled with boxes saying "Our Core Collection is Being Digitised". I couldn't make any book appear!

This type of scanned book really wouldn't work as an ePub. Far better as a page-scan PDF.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks - that worked. I don't know what I was doing wrong before, but all I got was a screen filled with boxes saying "Our Core Collection is Being Digitised". I couldn't make any book appear!

This type of scanned book really wouldn't work as an ePub. Far better as a page-scan PDF.

It is really that aweful interface. To get to the online catalogue you need to go to the "digital collection" link from the menu, then in that article it has a "online catalogue" link that shows the books that are already digitized. If you go to menu and select "online catalogue" it shows ALL books without having the option to enable "show only digitized". Even the link from the english article will link to the dutch version of the search. So either way it is cumbersome, but you won't see the majority of books "being digitized", but only those already done.

[Ladyrixx]

I wonder if one could get it added to the list of sites supported by the FanFicFare Calibre plugin; that would make it easier to grab the books and get them into whatever format you want.

[Phogg]

Klaatu ...Verata...N...Necktie.

I know you were all thinking it.