Turning the Pages of Priceless Manuscripts
If you ran the British Library, would you let the general public into your climate-controlled rare books area, allow them to finger the pages of priceless medieval manuscripts, encourage them to touch a 14th century Koran, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, or the world's earliest dated printed book? Would you endanger the Sherborne Missal, a 15th century service book worth $24 million, by allowing people to turn its pages? Thanks to an innovative digitization project, appropriately called Turning the Pages (TTP), the Library plans to do just that.
From the word digitization, you've probably realized that patrons won't be physically walking into the Library's rare book area to turn these pages. However, you can visit the exhibition galleries in London at the Library's St. Pancras location to view the ten treasures digitized thus far — the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Diamond Sutra, the Sforza Hours, the Leonardo Notebook, the Golden Haggadah, the Luttrell Psalter, Elizabeth Blackwell's Herbal, Vesalius's Anatomy, the Sherborne Missal, and Sultan Baybars' Qur'an.
It's an interesting mixture of religion and science. According to Clive Izard, creative projects manager, there's been a conscious effort to expose the Library's collection to the broadest possible audience and the collection is particularly strong in manuscripts relating to world faith. He has a "wish list" of other titles to add to TTP, but these must wait for sponsorship money. [continue]
If you're going to be in London, do plan a visit to the British library, where you'll see all manner of bibliographic delights. Once you've seen the real old books (under glass) sit down at the digitized version of some grand old text and "flip" through all the pages you like.
The rest of us will have to be content with the British Library's website. It has some fun sections, including one on The Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition.
Posted on August 20, 2003 09:35 PM. Filed under: books & lit.