About the project

We are presenting you a collection of old books on mathematics. Started in the frames of the Mathtree mathematical resource catalogue, the collection has grown to develop into an independent project.

The collection comprises antique books on mathematics, mechanics, astronomy and other subjects, which are scanned, described, and published.  The books are scanned by a purpose-designed scanner in the part load mode. The aim of the collection is to preserve, in an electronic form, valuable books that can be damaged or lost as a result of improper storage, treatment, or natural hazards. In addition, the collection allows access to books for to the wide circles of the internet users.

Currently counting about 30 volumes in four languages, the collection comprises books by more than 20 authors including I. Newton, A-L. Cauchy, C.F. Gauss, G. de l'Hôpital, J. Bernoulli, D.A. Grave, C. von Wolff, A.A. Markov, N.N. Lobachevsky, and L. Euler.

The sources of the books are archives of the libraries with the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS); Institute of Hydrodynamics, SB RAS; State Public Scientific Technical Library, SB RAS; and the private library of the outstanding mathematician A.A. Lyapunov.

The collection items are presented as galleries of page images, with a possibility of navigating along them. Besides, the books can be downloaded as DjVu files. Each book has a short summary in the Russian and English languages.

The books are digitized using a high-resolution scanner, with subsequent processing. Many books are in the condition that makes their reading difficult: dark stained pages and discolored text. As the page images are processed, noise is removed, contrast augmented, and better definition achieved.

Further development of the collection suggests, apart from widening it, adding various functionalities that would, firstly, make the resource more user-friendly and, secondly, optimize it for search engines.