Site review - Max Euwe Centrum
Mark Weeks
is for the Max Euwe Centrum (MEC). The site is at address...
...and is associated with the organization of the same name located in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Center supports a museum, a library, and
chess activities in general.
The site is in the Dutch language, which presents a problem. I know of
no online services which offer Dutch to English translation and I have
no Dutch - English dictionary. Since many Dutch words have the same
linguistic roots as their English counterparts, it is not too difficult
to understand the essence of many of the pages. I found a Dutch - French
dictionary, which I used for less obvious terms. I apologize in advance
if I've made any mistakes about the content of a particular page.
The home page informs us in English that 'The Max Euwe Centrum was
founded in 1982 in Amsterdam. The main purpose is stimulating chess
activities.' It also provides a telephone number for further
information. The same page has two main links:-
1) [DE STICHTING 'The Foundation']/[DOELSTELLING 'Objective']
2) [SPONSORS]
and a few minor links -- [Nieuwe Website], [Schaakhistorie],
[Dutchbase], & [Column] -- which jump to pages also accessible via the
main links.
[DE STICHTING]/[DOELSTELLING] offers seven menu items at the top of page
and seven numbered links. The menu items are [ALGEMEEN 'General'] which
is the current page, [COLUMN], [MUSEUM], [BIBLIOTHEEK 'Library'],
[MEC/ACTUEEL 'News'], [LINKS], & [DENKSPORT 'Mindsports']. The seven
numbered links are [1:Algemeen], [2:Bestuur 'Management'],
[3:Medewerkers 'Collaborators'], [4:Geschiedenis 'History'], [5:Relaties
'Relationships'], [6:Hoofdsponsors 'Main sponsors'], &
[7:Gastenboek 'Guest book']. [Geschiedenis] offers a very short
biography of Euwe, World Champion and FIDE President.
[ALGEMEEN] provides visiting information and has a photo of a large,
outdoor chess set which is on the square next to the main entrance. How
do I know this? I visited the center a little more than a year ago. If
you travel to Amsterdam, it is worth a visit!
[COLUMN] is a news article similar to columns found in many regional
newspapers around the world. It has a story with local flavor, news from
the international chess scene, and a noteworthy game. There is also an
[Artikelarchief] containing past articles.
[MUSEUM] has three numbered pages -- [1:Schaken en Kunst 'Chess art'],
[2:Museumstukken MEC 'MEC museum pieces'], & [3:Schaken in Nederland in
de negentiende eeuw 'Dutch chess in the 19th cent.']. It is not clear if
the material is refreshed periodically. The art page currently has two
images of 'priests and prelates' playing chess, while the MEC museum
describes a 10x10 chess program and a very unusual chess clock.
[BIBLIOTHEEK] also has three numbered pages -- [1:Boekbesprekingen 'Book
reviews'], [2:Bibliotheek], & [3:Dutchbase]. [Boekbesprekingen] is
presently empty, but informs us that the reviews will be written by Ton
Sibbing. [Dutchbase], in English, is an offshoot of BritBase, the model
for the national chess databases which are so popular around the
Internet. I'll explore [Bibliotheek] a little later in this article.
[MEC/ACTUEEL] has four numbered pages with the sort of information you'd
expect about the Center's current events. [LINKS] is self-explanatory
and [DENKSPORT] seems to be in progress, as the subpages are all empty.
Returning to the home page, it is refreshing to see attention given to
the Center's sponsors. Too often this information is buried in the
details of an event. Sponsors don't offer their support in order to be
ignored by the accompanying publicity.
---
Let's return to the [Bibliotheek]. The main page, a function to search
the Center's library, mentions that the library consists of 10183
titles. The search function works on four fields -- schrijver
('author'), titel, onderwerp ('topic'), & jaartal ('year') -- plus three
specific combinations of these fields. The result of a search is a table
showing the same four fields for each entry in the table. An additional
link for each result provides supplementary information like publisher,
place of publication, and the category of the work.
I decided to take a closer look at the entries for the library. I
noticed that the search on author requires only the first letter of the
author's name, i.e. a search on 'A' returns all items in the catalog
where the author's surname starts with the letter 'A'. I performed a
search on each letter of the alphabet and downloaded the results to my
computer. I then massaged the data to load it into Microsoft Access.
I ended up with 5457 entries, which means that about half of the 10183
titles are not yet recorded in the online catalog. Data truncation in
the results is significant. The 'Title' has a maximum length of 18
characters, 'Author' has 16 characters, and 'Topic' has 15 characters.
As with most databases, data quality is an issue. There are 126 entries
missing the Year and 15 entries where the Year is coded with a '-', e.g.
'-16'. Having said that, the available data is far more important than
the data which is missing or incorrect.
Never having analyzed the complete content of a chess book catalog, I'd
like to share the results, which you may also find enlightening. First,
here's a count of the MEC titles by century...
15xx 1
16xx 1
17xx 14
18xx 237
19xx 5062
...followed by a count by decade of titles published in the 20th
century...
190x 65
191x 113
192x 189
193x 252
194x 273
195x 352
196x 558
197x 896
198x 1223
199x 1141
...This shows an explosion in chess publishing over the past few
decades. The earliest books in the collection are...
Giuoco degli scacc - Lopez, R. (Ruy L - 1584 - ruy lopez
Neu erfundenes gro - Weickhmann, C. - 1664 - diverse schaaks
Giuoco degli scacc - Salvio, A. - 1723 - leerboek
Nobel game of ches - Stamma, Ph. - 1745 - leerboek miniat
Osservazioni teori - Lolli, G. - 1763 - leerboek
Giuoco degli scacc - Cozio, C. - 1766 - partijen
Giuoco degli scacc - Cozio, C. - 1766 - partijen
Nouvelle maniere d - Stamma, Ph. - 1777 - stamma probleem
Giuoco incomparabi - Ponziani, D. - 1782 - leerboek
Schachspiel, das : - Sardenheim - 1784 - filosofie
Bekwaame handleidi - Kersteman, P.L., - 1786 - leerboek
Bekwaame handleidi - Philidor, F.A.D. - 1786 - leerboek
Nouvel essai sur l - Stein, E. - 1789 - leerboek
Anweisung zum Scha - Allgaier, J. - 1796 - leerboek
Geist und die Gesc - Wahl, S. - 1798 - oudheid
Ueber den Geist de - Uflacker, J. - 1799 - cultuur leerboe
...which lists all 16 titles published before 1800. There seem to be a
few duplicates, but these may well be duplicate volumes in the
collection. Here's a count by topic of the most popular topics...
leerboek 315 'manual'
jaarboek 283 'yearbook'
[none] 217
partijen 149 'games'
probleem 143
eindspelstudie 113 'endgame studies'
algemeen 75
strategie 62
korte verhalen 54 'short stories'
encyclopedie 53
...The phrase 'korte verhalen' includes works like Assiac's 'Delights of
Chess'. Continuing with the count by topic, the most popular chess
personalities are...
aljechin 34
capablanca 30
fischer 25
botwinnik 24
karpov 23
keres 22
kasparov 19
tal 19
euwe 14
morphy 13
...Euwe is missing, but don't worry; a count by author shows the 25 most
prolific writers on the game...
Euwe, M. 256
Matanovic, A. 120
KNSB 56
N.N. 51
Sosonko, G., Ste 48
Suetin, A. 46
Bachmann, L. 44
Pachman, L. 44
Kooij, J. van de 43
Bouwmeester, H. 41
Averbach, J. 38
Niemeijer, M. 37
Reek, J. van 33
Hertog, H.J. den 31
Mieses, J. 31
Ned. Bond van Pr 29
Euwe, M., Kramer 28
Keene, R. 28
Reinfeld, F. 28
Schwarz, R. 27
Bouwmeester, H., 26
Botwinnik, M. 24
Richter, K. 23
Fine, R. 22
...where Euwe heads the list. I started to prepare a discussion of these
authors, but ran out of time (and space for this review). I'll post it
as a reply to the copy of this article on the Chess History discussion
group.
Bye for now,
Mark Weeks
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Before you buy.