British Library Contest Yields Rare Manuscripts for Digitization

Jennifer Pinkowski -- Library Journal, 9/14/2007

A 12th-century manuscript containing the earliest record of the English language, a war record of life on the homefront during World War II, and a Scottish illuminated manuscript detailing a "blood-curdling" right of excommunication are among the five winners of a year-long contest sponsored by the British Library  seeking manuscripts for digitization into virtual texts.

The contest, which drew 82 entries from libraries across the UK, was sponsored by the British Library, the Society for Chief Librarians, Scottish library chiefs, and Microsoft, which will fund the digitization package for each manuscript. Thirty pages of each will be turned into virtual text with Turning the Pages 2.0,a 3D software jointly created by the library and UK developer Armadillo Systems, and hosted on the British Library’s web site for three years.

The British Library’s web site already has an online gallery created using the first generation of Turning the Pages, which includes virtual versions of priceless manuscripts such as Vesalius’s 16th-century anatomy, Leonardo Da Vinci’s personal notebook, and the oldest printed book, a Chinese Buddhist text from the 8th century. Turning the Pages lets users virtually turn, hold or otherwise manipulate manuscripts.

Microsoft’s involvement is due to Turning the Pages 2.0 being developed for Vista, Microsoft’s latest operating system, which was released in January; the software can also be used with Windows XP SP2. (The first version of Turning the Pages relied on Adobe Shockwave to operate.) Microsoft CEO Bill Gates promoted Vista  by highlighting how Turning the Pages 2.0 digitized a manuscript from his own private collection-Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester, which Gates bought in 1994 for $30.8 million.

Virtual texts as a backup to disaster may be on the mind of librarians at the Scottish National Library, which was flooded when a sprinkler pipe burst earlier this week. Library officials have said a small number of modern books were minimally damaged, and that literary treasures in the collection such as the last letter of Mary Queen of Scots and a Gutenberg Bible were unharmed.