The contents of a pair of famous libraries, each founded more than 4 centuries ago, are getting a digital rejuvenation thanks to a £2 million award from the Polonsky Foundation. The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican Library) in Vatican City and the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford have partnered to create an online archive of their most precious works, which will bring a total of 1.5 million pages online over the next 4 years. Some of the more famous-and fragile-documents researchers and the public will be able to access online include Bodleian's copy of the 1455 Gutenberg Bible; early Greek manuscripts from authors such as Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and Hippocrates; and the oldest Hebrew codex in existence. The site will also feature relevant essays from scholars and interviews with librarians from the two institutions. Interested readers can keep track of the process at bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk and view the documents for free as they're scanned and catalogued.
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