2011 Press Releases
01.06.2011
University College Cork’s (UCC) Boole Library will receive an EMC Heritage Grant to support the creation of a publicly available digital archive of newly discovered printed books and papers of mathematician George Boole (1815-1864). These will be integrated with the current Boole Papers digitisation project. This new material is distinct from other Boole material held in the Special Collections section of the Boole Library at UCC and at other Universities.
George Boole, the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen’s College Cork, laid the foundations in the latter half of the nineteenth century for a system of mathematical expression which formed the basis for all modern computer languages. The digitisation of a recently discovered collection of papers provides a rare opportunity to preserve and share Boole’s sociological and scientific thoughts.
The EMC funded project is an extension to a current UCC Library project to digitise the George Boole collection of letters (over 4,000 digital items) at UCC, to make them accessible to the general public via the Internet. This is a significant project which has been in preparation for more than two years with an expected completion date of June 2011.
UCC wishes to acknowledge the initial
significant support provided by UCC graduate, Daragh Horgan and his wife Anne,
whose generosity in 2006 established the project in the first instance, and EMC
for enabling these additional enhancements to be undertaken. Partnerships with
individuals and with the corporate sector are key to enabling the undertaking
of such highly significant work as represented in this project.
The UCC Boole Library is one of eight organisations from around the world to be
awarded ‘Information Heritage Trust’ grants for projects that digitise,
preserve, protect and improve access to invaluable cultural information in
communities around the world. “The EMC Heritage Trust project is dedicated
to helping local community organisations worldwide preserve and protect these
historic artifacts so that future generations can continue to enjoy and learn
from them,” said Bill Teuber, Vice Chairman, EMC Corporation.
Picture: George Boole