On All Saints' Day, it seems appropriate to dedicate this column to a religious institution. Even if the geeky title of the opening story is a little bit irreverent.
By the way, this title easily wins my Best Title of the Month Award -- even if November has still 29 days to go.
John Paczkowski summarizes the facts for you.
The Vatican has enlisted Hewlett-Packard in its efforts to improve online access to the Apostolic Library. Since February 2001, HP has been providing the Vatican with hardware, equipment support and Web consultancy services necessary to allow faster access to the Vatican Library site and facilitate navigation of its vast bibliographic database. The Apostolic Vatican Library, founded by Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455), houses some 1.6 million antique and modern printed volumes.
Laura Rohde, in "HP, Vatican bring Apostolic Library online", gives additional details.
"The Library is open to the general public over the Web site today as part of the latest update and upgrade to what we've been doing with the Vatican. You can now see things such as a manuscript from Michelangelo, and there will be more information and images available online as time goes on," said Didier Philippe, director of strategy and corporate development for HP EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and chairman of the board for HP EMEA philanthropy, education and intellectual property.
Look, we’re all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house—in the bedroom he’s asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he’s rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he’s paying his taxes, in the yard he’s raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he’s making a bomb to blow it all up.
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
"HP has been providing the Vatican with hardware, equipment support, Web consultancy and even Web design help since the project began in February 2001. Hardware includes servers, mainly HP-UX," Philippe said.
Finally, David Colker starts "Vatican-HP Project Makes for a Holy Site" on a humorous tone.
Hewlett-Packard Co. has a divine new client. Considering the slowdown in corporate spending, it's a blessing.
The Palo Alto-based technology giant and the Holy See said Tuesday that they had placed selected treasures from the Vatican's Apostolic Library on the Internet.
Apparently, these treasures are still hard to find.
Biblical scholar Anthony Tambasco, a professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, was eager to explore the site, given that the church highly restricts access to the library, even for scholars. His initial impression was that the site was difficult to navigate and its offerings were frustratingly limited.
Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
For instance, only one page from the rare "B" version of the "Codex Vaticanus" Bible is available online. And although much of the site is in English and other languages, large portions of it -- including an enticing section called "Vatican Secret Archives" -- are only in Italian.
"This is not of much use to scholars," he said. "It's more like a museum exhibit."
If you want to check the site by yourself, you're just a click away from the Vatican Library.
Sources: John Paczkowski, San Jose Mercury News, October 31, 2002; Laura Rohde, IDG News Service, October 29, 2002; David Colker, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2002.