The Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library (MCVL; in es, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, BVMC) is a large-scale
digital library
A digital library, also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, or a digital collection is an online database of digital objects that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital documents, or other digital me ...
project, hosted and maintained by the
University of Alicante
The University of Alicante ( ca-valencia, Universitat d'Alacant, italic=no, ; es, Universidad de Alicante, italic=no, ; also known by the acronym ''UA'') was established in 1979 on the basis of the Center for University Studies (CEU), which was fo ...
in
Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
. It comprises the largest
open-access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
repository of digitised
Spanish-language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
historical texts and literature from the
Ibero-American
Ibero-America ( es, Iberoamérica, pt, Ibero-América) or Iberian America is a region in the Americas comprising countries or territories where Spanish or Portuguese are predominant languages (usually former territories of Portugal or Spain). P ...
world. When officially launched in 1999, the BVMC was the first
digital archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
of Spanish-language texts on the
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, initially reproducing some 2,000 individual works by 400 of the most significant authors in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Latin American literary and Hispanic Africa. By 2005–2006 the number of registered and available works had reached over 22,000.
The library is named for
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
, the famous 16th-century Spanish author and one of the most illustrious names in world literary history.
From its inception in 1999, this library has chosen to apply structural markup based on
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
and the
TEI encoding scheme for the creation of its documents.
[Bia, Pedreño (2001)]
Notes
References
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*
*
*
External links
Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes main website
Spanish digital libraries
Open-access archives
Spanish literature
University of Alicante
1999 establishments in Spain
Libraries established in 1999
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