History of the digital library

OrienTales is the digital library platform of the University Library System and Historical Archive of the University of Naples “L’Orientale.”
The platform is based on an open-source software that is functional and flexible, already widely used internationally by numerous libraries, museums, and archives to publish their digitized collections, and which complies with international standards for bibliographic description and the representation of digital objects.
It is continuously enhanced with new features that simplify navigation for both users who wish to explore the digital heritage and scholars who require advanced research tools, such as the comparison of multiple digital objects (enabled through the Mirador application), downloading (where licensing permits), OCR (i.e., the ability to search terms throughout the digitized text), metadata export, navigation among authorities, and the network of relationships created among them.
An innovative feature is the “Network Lab” function, which allows users to study the historical and geographical context of the digital objects being explored by linking them to people, events, and places. The function graphically represents the relationships among the actors involved in the analyzed object—such as the author, translator, publisher, printer, engraver, sponsoring entity, and others—thus enriching established scholarship and opening up new research perspectives.
The platform hosts digital objects of various types (rare books, manuscripts in Eastern languages, archival materials, documentary resources, periodicals and series published by the University, maps, and atlases), serving as a single access point for all the materials it contains.
Digitization follows the guidelines set out in the National Digitization Plan, also incorporating digital items produced in previous projects.

Objectives of the OrienTales Project

The objectives of the OrienTales project are manifold:
  • to collect, enhance, and make accessible on a single platform the digitized and born-digital cultural heritage of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and its components;
  • to establish a unified archive for the long-term preservation of digital objects and collections, safeguarding the originals from wear due to consultation;
  • to share with the digital community a heritage that would otherwise remain accessible only to specialists and experts;
  • to ensure interoperability of shared data through the use of open standards and formats, including the IIIF framework, which enables effective and high-quality image access;
  • to serve as a digital extension of the University’s physical libraries.