Monday, February 9, 2009

Medieval art à la carte: Digital Gutenberg Bible

More manuscript-related news from the Morgan:

The Morgan announced today that it will take steps to create a digital version of one of its three Gutenberg Bibles. The Gutenberg Bible's 1,026 pages will be a welcome addition to the Morgan's already impressive collection of completely digitized manuscripts, available for free via their library search engine.

I really have to applaud the Morgan's efforts at digitization of their collections. Not only is the collection of manuscripts an invaluable resource, but taking steps to digitize the manuscripts and make them available online in their entirety shows the people at the Morgan really get it. There's nothing like seeing a several-hundred-year-old manuscript in person, but this helps make manuscripts easily available to a much wider audience. Let's hope other libraries follow their lead!

For those of you who are interested, La Bibliothèque nationale de France also has digital copies of many of their manuscripts, but if you don't speak French, their online catalog, Mandragore, is a bit hard to navigate.

More information on the digitization of the Gutenberg Bible from the NY Times.

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