Richard Ryan (biographer)
Richard Ryan was a British writer of Irish descent. He was the son of Oxford Street, London bookseller and publisher Richard Ryan and was educated at St Paul's School, London. Ryan produced the first Irish biographical dictionary Biographia Hibernica, a Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland, from the earliest periods to the present time in 1819 and 1821, he was a poet, writing for newspapers and publishing books on poetry, a biographer of poets and playwrights, an editor, a lyricist for popular music and a playwright of several plays in the West End of London. Richard Ryan lived in Camden Town, from 1819 until his death in 1849. Richard Ryan was the son of bookseller Richard Elizabeth Ryan, he was born at their home in Oxford Street near the London. It was one of several locations on Oxford Street where his father ran a book-selling business for 34 years, from 1784 - 1818. An 1840 street view of the buildings on Oxford Street, can be seen online. Richard was his father's only child, but he had three older half brothers from his mother, a widow living in Poland Street when she married his father in February 1796.
Ryan attended St Paul's School. He worked as a bookseller with his father after leaving school but decided to close the bookshop in 1819, a year after his father died on 29 July 1818, to focus on his writing. Many London booksellers in the early nineteenth century were book publishers. Richard's father had published extensive catalogues and books over the years and he must have assisted his father in the publication of these once he was old enough. In 1818 he published the third edition of An Essay on the Antiquities of the Irish Language by Charles Vallancey, published in 1772, he took the opportunity to add a catalogue section at the back of the book with more than 100 listings of Works relative to the History and the Language of Ireland on sale in his bookshop. Richard Ryan is known for his biographical books, the best-known being Biographia Hibernica, a Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland, from the earliest periods to the present time, 2 vols. 8vo, London. Volume One of the Worthies of Ireland was published in April 1819 and Volume Two in 1821.
The two volumes list the biographies of 326 Irish people. The Worthies of Ireland is regarded as the first general Irish biographical dictionary. Irish poet and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Seamus Heaney mentioned Ryan's efforts at the launch of the Dictionary of Irish Biography in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2009. Following the success of his first literary effort, Ryan focused on publishing several books of poems and creating biographical dictionaries of his passions: Dramatic Table Talk about the theatre, followed by Poetry and Poets, he continued to write poetry on various subjects for newspapers including The Morning Post and The Lancaster Gazette. In November 1824 the Time's Telescope. Books written by Richard Ryan about poetry and the theatre included: Eight Ballads on the fictions of the ancient Irish and other poems, 8vo, London, 1822. Poems on sacred subjects. To which are added several miscellaneous, 12mo, London, 1824. Ryan dedicated this book to his friend Quaker poet Bernard Barton.
Dramatic Table Talk, or Scenes, Situations, & adventures, serious & comic, in theatrical history & biography, 3 vols, 12mo, London, 1825. Reprinted 1830. Poetry and poets, being a collection of the choicest anecdotes relative to the poets of every age and nation. 12mo, London, 1826. The Christian Religion; this book was published under the initials R. R, it is not known if Ryan travelled further than Ireland, but he was editor of several books about expeditions to countries further afield, including Greece and New Zealand. In October 1824 he edited and wrote the preface to Greece in 1823 and 1824 by Hon. Colonel Leicester Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington which detailed Stanhope's correspondence with the Greek committee in England. Stanhope was with Lord Byron when he died in Greece that year and accompanied Byron's body back to England. Ryan was mentioned in The Morning Chronicle as being given documents relating to the book, by Stanhope; these included "several original letters" written by Byron to Stanhope, as well as some journals written by Stanhope.
Books edited by Richard Ryan include: Greece in 1823 and 1824, being a series of letters and other documents on the Greek Revolution, written during a visit to that country to, added the life of Mustapha Ali, by Colonel Leicester Stanhope, London, 1824. A narrative of a nine months' residence in New Zealand in 1827: together with a journal of a residence in Tristan D'Acunha, an island situated between South America and the Cape of Good Hope by Augustus Earle, London, 1832. Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, description of British Settlements on the Coast of New Holland by Thomas Braidwood Wilson, London, 1835. Ryan, whose wife Amelia was the daughter of local French-language publisher and bookshop owner Peter Didier, was fluent in the French language, he translated and adapted three plays from French to English in the 1830s, starting with Everybody's Husband, adapted from "Le Mari de Toutes Les Femmes" in 1831. His first play, in September 1830, was The Irish Girl, it closed early. Plays written by Ryan
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802)
Robert Chambers was a Scottish publisher, evolutionary thinker and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers, was influential in mid-19th century scientific and political circles. Chambers was an early phrenologist and was the anonymous author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, so controversial that his authorship was not acknowledged until after his death. Chambers was born in Peebles in the Scottish borders 10 July 1802 to Jean Gibson and James Chambers, a cotton manufacturer, he was their second son of six children. The town had changed little in centuries; the town had new parts, each consisting of little more than a single street. Peebles was inhabited by weavers and labourers living in thatched cottages, his father, James Chambers, made his living as a cotton manufacturer. Their slate-roofed house was built by James Chambers' father as a wedding gift for his son, the ground floor served as the family workshop. A small circulating library in the town, run by Alexander Elder, introduced Robert to books and developed his literary interests when he was young.
His father would buy books for the family library, one day Robert found a complete set of the fourth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica hidden away in a chest in the attic. He eagerly read this for many years. Near the end of his life, Chambers remembered feeling "a profound thankfulness that such a convenient collection of human knowledge existed, that here it was spread out like a well-plenished table before me." William recalled that for Robert, "the acquisition of knowledge was with him the highest of earthly enjoyments."Robert was sent to local schools and showed unusual literary taste and ability, though he found his schooling to be uninspiring. His education was typical for the day; the country school, directed by James Gray, taught the boys reading, and, for an additional charge, arithmetic. In grammar school it was the classics -- Ancient Greek, with some English composition. Boys bullied one another and the teacher administered corporal punishment in the classroom for unruly behaviour.
Although uninspired by the school, Robert made up for this at the bookseller. Both Robert and William were born with six fingers on six toes on each foot, their parents attempted to correct this abnormality through operations, while William's was successful Robert was left lame. So while other boys roughed it outside, Robert was content to study his books. Robert surpassed his elder brother in his education, which he continued for several years beyond William's. Robert had been destined for the ministry, but at the age of fifteen he dropped this intended career; the arrival of the power loom threatened James Chambers' cotton business, forcing him to close it down and become a draper. During this time, James began to socialise with a number of French prisoners-of-war on parole who were stationed in Peebles. James Chambers lent these exiles a large amount of credit, when they were abruptly transferred away he was forced to declare bankruptcy; the family moved to Edinburgh in 1813. Robert continued his education at the High School, William became a bookseller's apprentice.
In 1818 Robert, at 16 years old, began his own business as a bookstall-keeper on Leith Walk. At first, his entire stock consisted of some old books belonging to his father, amounting to thirteen feet of shelf space and worth no more than a few pounds. By the end of the first year the value of his stock went up to twelve pounds, modest success came gradually. While Robert built up a business, his brother William expanded his own by purchasing a home-made printing press and publishing pamphlets as well as creating his own type. Soon afterwards and William decided to join forces – with Robert writing and William printing, their first joint venture was a magazine series called The Kaleidoscope, or Edinburgh Literary Amusement, sold for threepence. This was issued every two weeks between 6 October 1821 and 12 January 1822, it was followed by Illustrations of the Author of Waverley, which offered sketches of individuals believed to have been the inspirations for some of the characters in Walter Scott's works of fiction.
The last book to be printed on William's old press was Traditions of Edinburgh, derived from Robert's enthusiastic interest in the history and antiquities of Edinburgh. He followed this with Walks in Edinburgh, these books gained him the approval and personal friendship of Walter Scott. After Scott's death, Robert paid tribute to him by writing a Life of Sir Walter Scott. Robert wrote a History of the Rebellions in Scotland from 1638 to 1745 and numerous other works on Scotland and Scottish traditions. On 7 December 1829 Robert married Anne Kirkwood, the only child of Jane and John Kirkwood. Together they had 14 children. Excluding these three, their children were Robert, Mary, Janet, Amelia, William and Alice. At the beginning of 1832 Robert's brother William Chambers started a weekly publication entitled Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, which speedily gained a large circulation. Robert was at first only a contributor, but after 14 volumes had appeared, he became joint editor with his brother, his collaboration contributed more than anything else to the success of the Journal.
The tw
Frankenstein
Frankenstein. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20, her name first appeared on the second edition, published in 1823. Shelley travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim, 17 kilometres away from Frankenstein Castle, two centuries before, an alchemist was engaged in experiments, she travelled in the region of Geneva —where much of the story takes place—and the topic of galvanism and occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley. Mary and Lord Byron decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for days, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Romantic movement. At the same time, it is an early example of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results.
It has had a considerable influence in literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and plays. Since the novel's publication, the name "Frankenstein" has been used to refer to the monster itself; this usage is considered erroneous, but some commentators regard it as well-established and acceptable. In the novel, Frankenstein's creation is identified by words such as "creature", "monster", "daemon", "wretch", "abortion", "fiend" and "it". Speaking to Victor Frankenstein, the monster says "I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel". Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister, it takes place at an unspecified time in the 18th century, as the letters' dates are given as "17—". In the story following the letters by Walton, the readers find that Victor Frankenstein creates a monster that brings tragedy to his life; the novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a fictional correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister, Margaret Walton Saville.
Walton is a failed writer and captain who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame. During the voyage, the crew spots a dog sled driven by a gigantic figure. A few hours the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the gigantic man observed by Walton's crew. Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion; the recounted story serves as the frame for Frankenstein's narrative. Victor begins by telling of his childhood. Born in Naples, into a wealthy Genevan family and his brothers and William, all three being sons of Alphonse Frankenstein by the former Caroline Beaufort, are encouraged to seek a greater understanding of the world through chemistry; as a young boy, Victor is obsessed with studying outdated theories that focus on simulating natural wonders. When Victor is five years old, his parents adopt Elizabeth Lavenza, the orphaned daughter of an expropriated Italian nobleman, with whom Victor falls in love.
During this period, Victor's parents and Caroline, take in yet another orphan, Justine Moritz, who becomes William's nanny. Weeks before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt in Germany, his mother dies of scarlet fever. At the university, he excels at chemistry and other sciences, soon developing a secret technique to impart life to non-living matter, he undertakes the creation of a humanoid, but due to the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body, Victor makes the Creature tall, about 8 feet in height and proportionally large. Despite Victor's selecting its features as beautiful, upon animation the creature is instead hideous, with watery white eyes and yellow skin that conceals the muscles and blood vessels underneath. Repulsed by his work, Victor flees. While wandering the streets, he meets his childhood friend, Henry Clerval, takes Henry back to his apartment, fearful of Henry's reaction if he sees the monster. However, the Creature has escaped. Victor is nursed back to health by Henry.
After a four-month recovery, he receives a letter from his father notifying him of the murder of his brother William. Upon arriving in Geneva, Victor sees the Creature near the crime scene and climbing a mountain, leading him to believe his creation is responsible. Justine Moritz, William's nanny, is convicted of the crime after William's locket, which had contained a miniature portrait of Caroline, is found in her pocket. Victor is helpless to stop her from being hanged. Ravaged by grief and guilt, Victor retreats into the mountains; the Creature finds him and pl
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England, is an independent professional body and registered charity promoting and advancing standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales. The College is located at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, it publishes multiple medical journals including the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Faculty Dental Journal, the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The origins of the College date to the fourteenth century with the foundation of the "Guild of Surgeons Within the City of London". Certain sources date this as occurring in 1368. There was ongoing dispute between the surgeons and barber surgeons until an agreement was signed between them in 1493, giving the fellowship of surgeons the power of incorporation; this union was formalised further in 1540 by Henry VIII between the Worshipful Company of Barbers and the Guild of Surgeons to form the Company of Barber-Surgeons. In 1745 the surgeons broke away from the barbers to form the Company of Surgeons.
In 1800 the Company was granted a Royal Charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons in London. A further charter in 1843 granted it the present title of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; the correct way to address a member or fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons is to use the title Mr, Mrs, or Ms. This system has its origins in the 16th century, when surgeons were barber-surgeons and did not have a medical degree, unlike physicians, who, by the 18th century, held a university medical degree and could thus be referred to as "Doctor". By the time the College of Surgeons received its Royal Charter in 1800, the Royal College of Physicians were insisting that candidates for membership for the college of Surgeons must have a medical degree first. Therefore, the ensuing years saw aspiring surgeons having to study medicine first and hence receive the title Doctor. Thereafter, having obtained the diploma of Member or Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons he would revert to the title "Mr" as a snub to the RCP.
Nowadays the title "Mr" is used by Members of the College who have passed the diploma MRCS examination and the College addresses Members as "Mr" or "Ms". In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, the distinction is made in the following conversation: "Come, come, we are not so far wrong after all," said Holmes. "And now, Dr. James Mortimer--" "Mister, Mister--a humble M. R. C. S." Despite Mortimer's correction, he is referred to as "Dr. Mortimer" throughout the story. A biographical register of fellows is available on Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online The Company of Surgeons moved from Surgeon's Hall in Old Bailey to a site at 41 Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1797. Construction of the first College building, to a design by George Dance the Younger, James Lewis, took from 1805 to 1813. In 1833 Sir Charles Barry won the public competition to design a replacement; the library and portico of this building are all that remain today after a German incendiary bomb hit the College in 1941. The exterior of the building was one of the filming location of Agatha Christie's Poirot episode The Mystery of the Spanish Chest.
In 1799 the government purchased the collection of John Hunter. This formed the basis of the Hunterian Collection, which has since been supplemented by others including an Odontological Collection and the natural history collections of Richard Owen; the Hunterian Museum is a member of The London Museums of Health & Medicine group, displays thousands of anatomical specimens, including the Evelyn tables and the skeleton of the "Irish giant" Charles Byrne, surgical instruments, paintings and sculptures about medical individuals and medicine. Faculty of Dental Surgery Faculty of General Dental Practice Faculty of Anaesthetists - Until 1988, now the Royal College of Anaesthetists; the Cheselden Medal was instituted in 2009 in honour of William Cheselden "to recognise unique achievements in, exceptional contributions to, the advancement of surgery". The award is made at irregular intervals to reflect the outstanding qualities required of recipients and is deemed one of the College’s highest professional honours.
The Royal Colleges' Bronze Medal was instituted in 1957 and is awarded jointly with the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. It is awarded annually "on the nomination of the Medical Group of the Royal Photographic Society for the outstanding example of photography in the service of medicine and surgery"; the Wood Jones Medal was instituted in 1975 to commemorate Frederic Wood Jones. It is awarded by a Committee "for contributions to anatomical knowledge or the teaching of anatomy in the tradition of Frederic Wood Jones"; the Clement-Price Award was founded in 1958 with a gift of 1,000 guineas from members of the staff of the Westminster Hospital in honour of Sir Clement Price Thomas. It is awarded triennially, or at such other interval as the President may decide, by the Council on the recommendation of the Fellowship Election and Prize Committee, "in recognition of meritorious contributions to surgery in its widest sense, without restriction of candidature".
The Lister Medal has been awarded since 1924, after the College was entrusted in 1920 with administrating the Lister Memorial Fund, in memory of pioneering British surgeon Joseph Lister. The award is decided in conjunction with the Royal Society
The Purloined Letter
"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt"; these stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. It first appeared in the literary annual The Gift for 1845 and was soon reprinted in numerous journals and newspapers; the unnamed narrator is discussing with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin some of his most celebrated cases when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known as G—; the Prefect has a case. A letter has been stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed woman by the unscrupulous Minister D—, it is said to contain compromising information. D— was in the room, saw the letter, switched it for a letter of no importance, he has been blackmailing his victim. The Prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree: The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen.
Therefore, Minister D— still has the letter in his possession. The ability to produce the letter at a moment's notice is as important as actual possession of the letter. Therefore, he must have the letter close at hand; the Prefect says that he and his police detectives have searched the Ministerial hotel where D— stays and have found nothing. They checked under the carpets, his men have examined the tables and chairs with magnifying glasses and probed the cushions with needles but have found no sign of interference. Dupin asks the Prefect if he knows what he is seeking and the Prefect reads off a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes; the Prefect bids them good day. A month the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter, he is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward doubled, upon the letter's safe return, he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter.
The Prefect knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes Dupin produces the letter; the Prefect determines that it is races off to deliver it to the victim. Alone together, the narrator asks Dupin. Dupin explains the Paris police are competent within their limitations, but have underestimated with whom they are dealing; the Prefect mistakes the Minister D -- for a fool. For example, Dupin explains how an eight-year-old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called "Odds and Evens"; the boy was able to determine the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move. He explains that D— knew the police detectives would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place, thus hid it in plain sight. Dupin says. Complaining of weak eyes he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of, to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title.
Striking up a conversation with D— about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter. Dupin noticed that the paper was chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and another. Dupin concluded that D— wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal. Dupin left a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Striking up the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D— was startled by a gunshot in the street. While he went to investigate, Dupin switched D—'s letter for a duplicate. Dupin explains that the gunshot distraction was arranged by him and that he left a duplicate letter to ensure his ability to leave the hotel without D— suspecting his actions. If he had tried to seize it Dupin surmises D— might have had him killed; as both a political supporter of the Queen and old enemy of the Minister, Dupin hopes that D— will try to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, at the end be presented with an insulting note that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.
This story first appeared in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1845, published in December, 1844 in Philadelphia by Carey and Hart. Poe earned $12 for its first printing, it was included in the 1845 collection Tales By Edgar A. Poe; the epigraph "Nihil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" attributed by Poe to Seneca was not found in Seneca's known work. It is from Petrarch's treatise "De Remediis utriusque Fortunae". Poe took the reference from Samuel Warren's novel, Ten Thousand a-Year. Dupin is not a professional detective. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", Dupin takes up the case for amusement and refuses a financial reward. In "The Purloined Letter", Dupin undertakes the case for financial gain and personal revenge, he is not motivated by pursuing truth, emphasized by the lack of information about the contents of the purloined letter. Dupin
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives. Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, in 1882 the publisher George Smith, of Smith, Elder & Co. planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen editor of the Cornhill Magazine, owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the Biographia Britannica, the name of an earlier eighteenth-century reference work; the first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography appeared on 1 January 1885.
In May 1891 Leslie Stephen resigned and Sidney Lee, Stephen's assistant editor from the beginning of the project, succeeded him as editor. A dedicated team of sub-editors and researchers worked under Stephen and Lee, combining a variety of talents from veteran journalists to young scholars who cut their academic teeth on dictionary articles at a time when postgraduate historical research in British universities was still in its infancy. While much of the dictionary was written in-house, the DNB relied on external contributors, who included several respected writers and scholars of the late nineteenth century. By 1900, more than 700 individuals had contributed to the work. Successive volumes appeared quarterly with complete punctuality until midsummer 1900, when the series closed with volume 63; the year of publication, the editor and the range of names in each volume is given below. Since the scope included only deceased figures, the DNB was soon extended by the issue of three supplementary volumes, covering subjects who had died between 1885 and 1900 or, overlooked in the original alphabetical sequence.
The supplements brought the whole work up to the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901. Corrections were added. After issuing a volume of errata in 1904, the dictionary was reissued with minor revisions in 22 volumes in 1908 and 1909. In the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the dictionary had "proved of inestimable service in elucidating the private annals of the British", providing not only concise lives of the notable deceased, but additionally lists of sources which were invaluable to researchers in a period when few libraries or collections of manuscripts had published catalogues or indices, the production of indices to periodical literatures was just beginning. Throughout the twentieth century, further volumes were published for those who had died on a decade-by-decade basis, beginning in 1912 with a supplement edited by Lee covering those who died between 1901 and 1911; the dictionary was transferred from its original publishers, Elder & Co. to Oxford University Press in 1917.
Until 1996, Oxford University Press continued to add further supplements featuring articles on subjects who had died during the twentieth century. The supplements published between 1912 and 1996 added about 6,000 lives of people who died in the twentieth century to the 29,120 in the 63 volumes of the original DNB. In 1993 a volume containing missing biographies was published; this had an additional 1,000 lives, selected from over 100,000 suggestions. This did not seek to replace any articles on existing DNB subjects though the original work had been written from a Victorian perspective and had become out of date due to changes in historical assessments and discoveries of new information during the twentieth century; the dictionary was becoming less and less useful as a reference work. In 1966, the University of London published a volume of corrections, cumulated from the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. There were various versions of the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, which covered everyone in the main work but with much shorter articles.
The last edition, in three volumes, covered everyone who died before 1986. In the early 1990s Oxford University Press committed itself to overhauling the DNB. Work on what was known until 2001 as the New Dictionary of National Biography, or New DNB, began in 1992 under the editorship of Colin Matthew, professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Matthew decided that no subjects from the old dictionary would be excluded, however insignificant the subjects appeared to a late twentieth-century eye. Suggestions for new subjects were solicited through questionnaires placed in libraries and universities and, as the 1990s advanced and assessed by the editor, the 12 external consultant editors and several hundred associate editors and in-house staff. Digitization of the DNB was performed by the Alliance Photosetting Company in India; the new dictionary would cover British history, "broadly defined", up to 31 December 2000. The research project was conceived as a collaborative one, with in-house staff co-ordinating the work of
Bibsys
BIBSYS is an administrative agency set up and organized by the Ministry of Education and Research in Norway. They are a service provider, focusing on the exchange and retrieval of data pertaining to research and learning – metadata related to library resources. BIBSYS are collaborating with all Norwegian universities and university colleges as well as research institutions and the National Library of Norway. Bibsys is formally organized as a unit at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, located in Trondheim, Norway; the board of directors is appointed by Norwegian Ministry of Research. BIBSYS offer researchers and others an easy access to library resources by providing the unified search service Oria.no and other library services. They deliver integrated products for the internal operation for research and special libraries as well as open educational resources; as a DataCite member BIBSYS act as a national DataCite representative in Norway and thereby allow all of Norway's higher education and research institutions to use DOI on their research data.
All their products and services are developed in cooperation with their member institutions. BIBSYS began in 1972 as a collaborative project between the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Library, the Norwegian Institute of Technology Library and the Computer Centre at the Norwegian Institute of Technology; the purpose of the project was to automate internal library routines. Since 1972 Bibsys has evolved from a library system supplier for two libraries in Trondheim, to developing and operating a national library system for Norwegian research and special libraries; the target group has expanded to include the customers of research and special libraries, by providing them easy access to library resources. BIBSYS is a public administrative agency answerable to the Ministry of Education and Research, administratively organised as a unit at NTNU. In addition to BIBSYS Library System, the product portfolio consists of BISBYS Ask, BIBSYS Brage, BIBSYS Galleri and BIBSYS Tyr. All operation of applications and databases is performed centrally by BIBSYS.
BIBSYS offer a range of services, both in connection with their products and separate services independent of the products they supply. Open access in Norway Om Bibsys
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Wood, James, ed. (1907). . The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.
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