Manuscriptorium

The freely accessible Manuscriptorium digital library, the designated platform for the European Digital Library of Written Cultural Heritage, provides access to more than 5 million images, at present, of manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books, maps, deeds, charters and more, up to the year 1800. These historical resources, otherwise scattered in various digital libraries around the world, are now accessible under a single digital library interface.

“The [Manuscriptorium] user interface is designed for easy searching and viewing of documents and it enables the creation of personal collections and virtual documents. This means users and contributors of content can create their own virtual libraries from the aggregated content and share the results of their work with students, colleagues and other users.”
(more)

Sponsored by the National Library of the Czech Republic and ENRICH (European Networking Resources and Information concerning Cultural Heritage), the Manuscriptorium project coordinates access to digitized resources produced by collaborating partners at many renowned institutions, extending beyond the countries of the European Union.

Libraries Website: EBSCO Discovery Service

Now it is even easier for us at OU to find and access items in the Manuscriptorium project. Items from Manuscriptorium are now accessible by searching the Libraries website. The metadata that makes Manuscriptorium items turn up in the OU Libraries online catalog is provided by the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). Nor is Manuscriptorium the only resource included in catalog searching, courtesy of EDS:

“The Manuscriptorium joins a long list of key information sources available to EBSCO Discovery Service users including: British Library, Baker & Taylor, NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press, Oxford University Press, American Psychological Association, ABC-CLIO, ingentaconnect, Government Printing Office, ECONIS, Mergent Inc., arXiv, Credo Reference, IGI Global, World Book and Accessible Archives. In addition, Web of Science & H.W. Wilson provide access for mutual customers. The EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers (and growing) in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers, representing far more content providers and publishers than any other discovery service.

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.” (more)

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the University Libraries website, and log-in with your 4×4.

2. Click in the Articles field and enter your search text (for example, “De revolutionibus”).

3. Click “Go.” In the resulting hit list, provided by the EBSCO Discovery Service, you will see “View this record from Manuscriptorium” links within the EBSCOhost interface.

4. Click the link to go to that item in Manuscriptorium.

For help, see the Searching Databases tutorial at the Libraries website, or come in and ask us for a demonstration.

So take your pick: If you wish, access Manuscriptorium directly, or by searching the Libraries online catalog.

Related post: Searching the Libraries catalog.