Manuscriptorium available to researchers

Important new resource for the study of early Slavic and East European history, literature, and language

The Petro Jacyk Resource Centre is pleased to announce the University of Toronto Library's subscription to the Manuscriptorium. The Manuscriptorium is a digital library of manuscripts, old printed books and other documents from various European university libraries, and cultural institutions such as foundations or special initiatives and projects. Its objective is to create a shared virtual research environment for the study of manuscripts, incunabula, rare books, maps, sheet music, and other historical documents.

The Manuscriptorium is the largest digital manuscript library in Europe. The National Library of the Czech Republic initiated the project and has partnered with more than 18 European libraries in this collaborative effort. The project brings together about 85% of the manuscripts currently digitized by national libraries in Europe.

Presently there are more than 30,000 catalogue records within the Manuscriptorium from Czech, Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Hungarian, Moldovan, Romanian, Swedish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Turkish historical collections, representing over 1,400 manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books and maps within the digital library (i.e. about 1 million individual images).

Worthy of special mention amongst the manuscripts from this digital library are the so-called Manual of Václav Koranda, the oldest extant cumulative text from the archive of the Utraquist consistory and a principal source for 15th-century ecclesiastical history, and the Czech Glagolitic Bible. Also included is an important monument of Czech language and literature, the Clementine Psalter, with the earliest version of the second Old Czech translation of the Psalter, and, in the field of art history, the famous illuminated manuscript of the Chronicle of the Council of Constance by Ulrich Richental. The National Museum Library in Prague has contributed mainly illuminated 14th-century manuscripts, and the Talmberk Codex, an important legal monument of the early 16th century. The Moravian Regional Library in Brno has added manuscripts from the Mikulov Dietrichstein Library. The present-day Mikulov manuscript holdings comprise 116 manuscripts in 117 volumes, of which 23 are on parchment, 15 date from the 14th century, over 80 from the 15th century, and 16 from the 16th century. Also included in the digital library are old Romanian books dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, including the first book printed on Romanian territory, the Liturghierul slavonesc (1508).

The Manuscriptorium can be searched through the Open Catalogue of Historical Resources, which contains numerous bibliographic records and is rapidly expanding. Every document has a bibliographic description, document summary and browsing options. Searching may be done by keyword, shelf-mark, title, or author, or by place or repository. Many documents have digital images in addition to their text version which is in Latin and translated into Czech.

Members of the University of Toronto community can access the online library by searching for "manuscriptorium" in the University of Toronto Library catalogue or in E-resources at http://main.library.utoronto.ca/index.shtml.