The Development of CESAR

The CESAR Project at Oxford Brookes University

In 2000, the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) made a grant from its Resource Enhancement Scheme of £273,804 to Oxford Brookes University for the development of "a comprehensive on-line repository of French theatre resources in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries". The grant was to cover the academic years 2001-2004. Barry Russell was appointed Director and took on a team to assist him in achieving the specified objectives of the project:

• Research Manager : Anastasia Sakhnovskaia
• Research Assistant/Administrator : Marianne Morris Nicaise
• Technical Director : Sylvain Guillemin
• Technical Consultant : Anahide Tchertchian
• Image Technician : Naomi Barbour

The database was designed by Barry Russell using MySQL and PHP and the three original datasets which formed the core of CESAR were entered, merged and refined. The team then undertook the task of building up the contents of the database, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with data and supporting material taken from a wide range of primary and secondary sources. At the same time, nine key reference works, most of them originally published in the eighteenth century and therefore not easily available to many researchers, were converted into electronic format with links to individual entries in the database. The development of a comprehensive search-engine enabled the user to interrogate not only the database but the online books as well, providing an invaluable tool for research.

Following the untimely death of Barry Russell in February 2003, Mark Bannister was appointed Director of the project for the remainder of the funded period.

The CESAR IMAGES Project at Oxford Brookes University

The iconography of the French theatre of the 17th and 18th centuries is a natural complement to the data contained within the CESAR database. From early in 2003, the CESAR team at Oxford Brookes University were investigating the possibilities of moving into this area and subsequently collaborated with the Salford Protocol Project, a pilot project funded by the British Academy, to develop a prototype imagebank with a search and retrieval system linked to metadata files containing a substantial descriptive element.

In 2004, Mark Bannister was awarded a grant of £238,704 by the AHRC from its Resource Enhancement Scheme to fund a two-year project entitled CESAR IMAGES. The principal objective was to create an imagebank, bringing together as wide a collection of images as was possible within the time available, supported by descriptive material enabling historians of the theatre, costume, stage-design and theatre construction as well as theatre-lovers of all kinds to gain access rapidly to the images that interested them.

The CESAR Imagebank was accessible online throughout its period of development. By the end of the funded period, over 3500 images had been entered.

The members of the project team were:

• Director : Mark Bannister
• Associate Director : Valerie Worth-Stylianou
• Postdoctoral Researcher : Hugh Roberts (2004-2005)
• Postdoctoral Researcher : Sabine Chaouche (2005-2006)
• Postdoctoral Researcher : Anastasia Sakhnovskaia
• Research Assistant/Administrator : Marie Carty
• Image Technician : Naomi Barbour
• Technical Consultant : Sylvain Guillemin
• Technical Consultant : Anahide Tchertchian

Other funding

Since 2000, CESAR has also received financial support from Oxford Brookes University, MIT, the University of Toronto, the British Academy and the French Embassies in Washington, DC and London.

CESAR is currently supported by Oxford Brookes University.