Digitization started from the realization that we must make our large and much requested collections more quickly and easily available, while managing to better protect them for the future. By doing this, we ensure the preservation of the originals from too much handling, while, at the same time, making them accessible to the international community of scholars. Digitization is a complex, time-consuming and highly-skilled process comprising of multiple interlinked systems and a prestigious collaboration with the Bodleian Library. After setting up a state-of-the-art imaging studio on the premises, Christ Church was the first college to approach Digital Library Systems and Services suggesting that our documents be migrated onto the same platform. At present, Christ Church has well over 200 manuscripts and rare or unique early printed books available on Digital Bodleian. These are also accessible on the Christ Church Digital Library webpages.
Overall, 2022 has been a very busy and good year in terms of the digitisation programme. First and foremost, to complement the Library’s efforts to finalize cataloguing the Hebrew early printed books, this year the digitisation programme focused on the above collection. For this, Dr Rahel Fronda (the Hebrew specialist working on the project) has identified a number of important incunables and very rare and valuable printed volumes. Most of these are now available.
A lot more is in the pipeline, but, for now, in order to see some of the recently digitised volumes in the Hebrew and other collections, please click on the links listed below:
HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS
MB*.4.30: Commentary on the book of Ruth, with the biblical text (1560) – 198 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/9243cf0e-6a8b-41cd-ba0e-a2a5bc...
MC.4.8: Text of the biblical books of Latter Prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as well as the Twelve Minor Prophets - with David Kimhi’s commentary – 510 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/032343a4-77a7-43ce-9675-31ab99...
MD.3.3: Babylonian Talmud, printed in Constantinople (1583-93) [6 volumes; see below] – 372 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2e846683-6380-4714-81f3-f10e95...
MD.3.5: Babylonian Talmud, printed in Constantinople (1583-93) – 360 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/de7cd2a2-d7fa-4c04-b85d-917e28...
MD.3.6: Babylonian Talmud, printed in Constantinople (1583-93) – 368 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/eeff9914-0215-4142-b165-8a000f...
MD.3.7: Babylonian Talmud, printed in Constantinople (1583-93) – 272 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/9792aaa5-8d46-41dd-ac2c-15f2ea...
MD.7.18(1): Kabbalistic commentary on the Jewish Liturgy (1559) – 268 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/8d37a6e4-4154-40d6-bb6d-913346...
MD.7.18(2): The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (1562) – 183 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/1d391a17-a61f-48a4-a5ec-422435...
ME.5.7 Forbidden marriages according to the Karaite law (1581) – 178 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/158c2fd6-7ae5-4424-b2a5-fb017c...
MF.1.3 Homiletical commentaries on the Torah and Prophets (1593) – 178 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/774437db-c97b-4f98-9c61-3caead...
MF.2.5 Commentary on the biblical Five Scrolls (1571) – 502 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/220dc9f5-5cb4-410b-b494-134132...
MH.1.20(2): Sixty homilies on the Pentateuch (1678) – 166 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/1dce0cca-3ef6-4f21-a746-f16f9c...
MUSIC MANUSCRIPTS
Arch.Inf.Subt.K1, The Sarum Antiphoner (1519) – 1132 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/bb525c0a-1c48-4ce7-b9e8-560094...
Mus 1206, Alessandro Stradella’s Benedictus (1639-82) – 24 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/0430fa70-0ed6-4c6b-b5c7-c10c1c...
Mus 1208, English Church Music by O. Gibbons and H. Aldrich (1696) – 44 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/fa360e7a-7560-403e-b5f1-f0cab8...
Mus 1237, Georg Victorinus, Siren coelestis (1638) – 32 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/a194686d-b887-453f-915c-114d20...
Mus 1291A, Fragment from a partbook from a lost set (1601) – 4 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/8b1a5cdd-b352-4ea7-8792-b9c0a3...
Mus 1291B Fragment from a partbook from a lost set (1627) – 4 images
LEWIS CARROLL COLLECTION
Carroll-Annie Henderson 1; 1 image
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/f2371a14-4035-4592-b8ff-652880...
Carroll-Maben-X.Kitchin 1-2; 2 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/1b908673-2a6b-41ff-a43b-c8bd9c...
Carroll-Owen 1-8; 8 images
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/10ed277d-d972-4517-905c-126bf5...
Cristina Neagu
Keeper of Special Collections
* For other news related to Special Collections, please go the library Exhibitions and Research.
