ЕВОЛЮЦІЯ НУМІЗМАТИЧНИХ БАЗ ДАНИХ У ІСТОРИЧНОМУ ВИМІРІ: ДОЦИФРОВА ЕПОХА
EVOLUTION OF NUMISMATIC DATABASES IN A HISTORICAL DIMENSION: THE PRE-DIGITAL ERA

Summary/Abstract: Relevance of the study. Numismatics as a science has always depended on the systematization and ordering of large amounts of coin-related data. The history of numismatic databases in the pre-digital era makes it possible to understand not only the technical development of information recording tools, but also the evolution of scholarly approaches to classification, description, and dissemination of knowledge. The study of this process is important, as it reveals how the accounting practices developed in the 16th–20th centuries (inventory books, catalogues, card indexes, corpus publications) became the direct precursors of modern electronic databases, laying the foundations of their structural logic and methodological framework. Purpose of the study. The aim of the authors is to reconstruct the evolution of forms of organizing numismatic information in the pre-digital era – from early handwritten descriptions and inventory books of the 17th–18th centuries to printed corpora of the 19th– 20th centuries and card file systems widely used until the 1970s. Particular attention is given to three leading institutions – the British Museum, the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, and the Corpus Nummorum project in Germany – which developed different models of data organization: practical-standardizing, institutional-museum, and academic-universalist. Conclusions of the study. The analysis showed that: a) in different historical periods, specific standards of describing coin collections were formed, ranging from local practices to inter-institutional typologies; b) inventory books, catalogues, and card files functioned as full-fledged “analog databases,” ensuring the collection, preservation, retrieval, and dissemination of information; c) the activity of leading centers (London, Paris, Berlin) defined methodological frameworks that were later transformed into international standards; d) the experience of pre-digital formats ensured structural continuity in the transition to digital solutions: modern online projects (Nomisma.org, OCRE, RPC Online) reproduce and develop corpus and card-file logic, transforming it into machine-readable formats (URI, LOD). Thus, historical cataloguing practices were not merely a “prehistory” but laid the foundation for modern digital numismatics. Future research. Promising areas include: the study of local and regional traditions beyond the “big three” (London–Paris–Berlin); reconstruction of the micro-history of data – changes in terminology, nomenclature, and description fields; analysis of transitional formats (card indexes, punch cards) as direct precursors of electronic systems; and reflection on the impact of numismatic corpora on the development of digital humanities in general.

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