The history of the book is an important part of humanities scholarship. Especially as more books are digitized, scholars, librarians, collectors, and others have become increasingly attuned to the significance of individual books as objects with their own unique story. Jewish books in particular tell a fascinating story about the spread of knowledge and faith in a global Diaspora.
Every literary work represents a moment in time and space where an idea was conceived and documented. But the history of a book continues long after composition as it is bought, sold, shared, read, confiscated, stored, or even discarded. This history is the essence of Footprints.
- an extant copy of an imprint
- a copy owned in the past whose whereabouts are unknown
Footprints is a database to track the circulation of printed "Jewish books." Much information about the movement of early printed books exists, but in scattered form. All of these individual pieces of data can connect to each other in order to build up a composite view of the movement of Jewish texts and ideas from place to place and across time.
