After his presidency, Thomas Jefferson took on the task of re-editing the New Testament by literally cutting and pasting a new version of the text, shorn of Jesus's miracles and the Resurrection. Titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (but known more commonly today as the Jefferson Bible), the handmade book had begun to crumble after nearly two centuries. Now, after a painstaking conservation process, the Jefferson Bible has been digitized, and will be on exhibition at the Smithsonian though May 2012. (Previously)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 6, 2011 - 64 comments

The Morgan Library Black Hours, one of the world's most beautiful and striking illuminated manuscripts, has been digitized in its entirety. Richly decorated in blue and gold on black vellum, it is one of a surviving handful of such manuscripts produced in late 15th century Bruges. (Poorer quality, but still interesting, images of another such work, the Black Hours of Charles the Bold, are also online.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Nov 19, 2011 - 21 comments

To mark the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inauguration, the JFK Library has unveiled a new digital archive containing 200,000 pages; 300 reels of audio tape, containing more than 1,245 individual recordings of telephone calls, speeches and meetings; 300 museum artifacts; 72 reels of film; and 1,500 photos.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jan 14, 2011 - 13 comments

Europeana, a portal that brings together digitized items from scores of museums and libraries from across the continent, has launched its first online exhibition, Art Nouveau. (Click on the object, then "View object in Europeana" for high-res images.) And be sure to check out the massive new exhibition Reading Europe at sister site The European Library.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 4, 2010 - 7 comments

Mapping sound at the British Library. The British Library has organized several of its archival sound collections on Google Maps. The results include Accents and Dialects, wildlife and soundscape recordings from Britain, music from India and Uganda, and a whole mess of noisy frogs. [more inside]
posted by LarryC on May 14, 2009 - 8 comments

Glasgow University Library Exhibitions. Some nice online exhibits : nineteenth century views of Glasgow, sixteenth and seventeenth century anatomical illustration, British bookbindings, Glasgow Cathedral windows, rare Spanish books, music books, flower illustration, etc.
posted by plep on Sep 23, 2003 - 2 comments