[Summary]
Some digitized versions of treasures from the British Library were
freely available online in the late 1990s. One of the first digitized
treasures was Beowulf, the earliest known narrative poem in English,
and one of the most famous works of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The British
Library holds the only known manuscript of Beowulf, dated circa 1000.
Brian Lang, chief executive of the library, explained on the website:
"The Beowulf manuscript is a unique treasure and imposes on the Library
a responsibility to scholars throughout the world. Digital photography
offered for the first time the possibility of recording text concealed
by early repairs, and a less expensive and safer way of recording
readings under special light conditions. (…) This work has not only
advanced scholarship; it has also captured the imagination of a wider
public, engaging people (through press reports and the availability
over computer networks of selected images and text) in the appreciation
of one of the primary artefacts of our shared cultural heritage."
***
The British Library began offering digitized versions of its treasures,
for example Beowulf, the earliest known narrative poem in English and
one of the most famous works of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
The British Library holds the only known manuscript of Beowulf, dated
circa 1000. The poem itself is much older than the manuscript -- some
historians believe it might have been written circa 750. The manuscript
was badly damaged by fire in 1731. 18th-century transcripts mentioned
hundreds of words and characters which were then visible along the
charred edges, and subsequently crumbled away over the years. To halt
this process, each leaf was mounted on a paper frame in 1845.
As explained on the website of the British Library, scholarly
discussions on the date of creation and provenance of the poem
continued around the world, and researchers regularly required access
to the manuscript. Taking Beowulf out of its display case for study not
only raised conservation issues, it also made it unavailable for the
many visitors who were coming to the British Library expecting to see
this literary treasure on display. Digitization of the manuscript
offered a solution to these problems, as well as providing new
opportunities for researchers and readers worldwide.
The Electronic Beowulf Project was launched as a database of digital
images of the Beowulf manuscript, as well as related manuscripts and
printed texts. In 1998, the database included the fiber-optic readings
of hidden characters and ultra-violet readings of erased text in the
manuscript; the full electronic facsimiles of the 18th-century
transcripts of the manuscript; and selections from the main 19th-
century collations, editions and translations.
Major additions to the database were planned for the following years,
such as images of contemporary manuscripts, links to the Toronto
Dictionary of Old English Project, and links to the comprehensive
Anglo-Saxon bibliographies of the Old English Newsletter.
The database project was developed in partnership with two leading
experts in the United States, Kevin Kiernan, from the University of
Kentucky, and Paul Szarmach, from the Medieval Institute of Western
Michigan University. Kevin Kiernan edited the electronic archive and
supervised the making of a CD-ROM with the main electronic images.
Brian Lang, chief executive of the British Library, explained on its
website: "The Beowulf manuscript is a unique treasure and imposes on
the Library a responsibility to scholars throughout the world. Digital
photography offered for the first time the possibility of recording
text concealed by early repairs, and a less expensive and safer way of
recording readings under special light conditions. It also offers the
prospect of using image enhancement technology to settle doubtful
readings in the text. Network technology has facilitated direct
collaboration with American scholars and makes it possible for scholars
around the world to share in these discoveries. Curatorial and
computing staff learned a great deal which will inform any future
programmes of digitization and network service provision the Library
may undertake, and our publishing department is considering the
publication of an electronic scholarly edition of Beowulf. This work
has not only advanced scholarship; it has also captured the imagination
of a wider public, engaging people (through press reports and the
availability over computer networks of selected images and text) in the
appreciation of one of the primary artefacts of our shared cultural
heritage."
# Other treasures of the British Library
Other digitized treasures of the British Library were available online
as well, for example Magna Carta, the first English constitutional
text, signed in 1215, with the Great Seal of King John; the Lindisfarne
Gospels, dated 698; the Diamond Sutra, dated 868, sometimes referred to
as the world's earliest print book; the Sforza Hours, a Renaissance
treasure dated 1490-1520; the Codex Arundel, with notes by Leonardo Da
Vinci from 1478 to 1518; and the Tyndale New Testament, as the first
English translation of the New Testament, printed in 1526 by Peter
Schoeffer in Worms, Germany.
In November 2000, the British Library released a digitized version of
the original Gutenberg Bible on its website. Gutenberg printed its
Bible in 1454 in Mainz, Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48
copies still available in 2000, and two full copies at the British
Library. A little different from each other, both were digitized in
March 2000 by Japanese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT
(Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then
processed to offer a digitized version available online a few months
later, for the world to enjoy.
# German rare prints
The Bielefeld University Library (Bibliothek der Universität Bielefeld)
in Germany offered online versions of German rare prints. Michael
Behrens, in charge of the digital library project, wrote in September
1998: " We started digitizing rare prints from our own library, and
some rare prints which were sent in via library loan, in November 1996.
(...) In that first phase of our attempts at digitization, starting
November 1996 and ending June 1997, 38 rare prints were scanned as
image files and made available via the web. (…) The next step, which is
just being completed, is the digitization of the Berlinische
Monatsschrift, a German periodical from the Enlightenment, comprising
58 volumes, and 2,574 articles on 30,626 pages. A somewhat bigger
digitization project of German periodicals from the 18th and early 19th
century is planned. The size will be about 1,000,000 pages. These
periodicals will be not just from the holdings of this library, but the
project would be coordinated here, and some of the technical would be
done here, also." (NEF Interview)
# The ARTFL Encyclopédie
The same year, the database of the first volume (1751) of the
Encyclopédie by Diderot and d’Alembert was available online as an
experiment from ARTFL (American and French Research on the Treasury of
the French Language), a common project from the CNRS (Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique -- National Scientific Research Center)
in France and the University of Chicago in Illinois. This online
experiment was a first step towards a full online version of the first
edition (1751-1772) of the Encyclopédie, with 72,000 articles written
by 140 contributors (Voltaire, Rousseau, Marmontel, d'Holbach, Turgot,
and others), 17 volumes of text (with 18,000 pages and 21,7 million
words) and 11 volumes of plates. Designed to collect and disseminate
the entire knowledge of the time, the Encyclopédie was a reflection of
the intellectual and social currents of the Enlightenment, and
contributed to disseminate novel ideas that would inspire the French
Revolution in 1789.