The document discusses the British Library's efforts to digitize its vast collection of over 150 linear kilometers of material. It provides examples of digitized books, manuscripts, newspapers, journals, sound recordings, videos, and born-digital content that have been made available online. It also outlines the challenges of ongoing digitization projects, such as funding, storage, sustainability, and technical standards.
From Beowulf to the Beatles: British Library Digital Activities (21-01-10)
1. From Beowulf to the Beatles: Digital Activities at the British Library Richard Davies Digital Approvals Manager 21/01/10 IT4Arts: The Digital Frontline
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4. 150 linear kilometres kilometres every year + million items 650 12 or
29. Thank you. e [email_address] t +44 (0) 20 7412 7182 01101101010101011001110100110110101010101100111010011011010101010110011101001101101010101011001110100110110101010101100111010110 www.bl.uk/digital
Editor's Notes
The collection includes 150 million items, in most known languages: 14 million books, 920,000 journal and newspaper titles, 57 million patents, 3 million sound recordings 8 million stamps and other philatelic items These require over 625km of shelves, and grow 12km every year 3 million new items are added every year
3½ billion pages of books
London Life "P. I. P." THE PENNY ILLUSTRATED PAPER London Life: P. I. P. The Penny Illustrated Paper (London, England), Saturday, April 05, 1913; pg. [1]; Issue 2706. Category: News
5½ billion pages total (very approximate)
50 million digital objects 100s TB Digitised 1% of our collections
Stamps Records
23 Books available through Turning the Pages: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/virtualbooks/viewall/index.html A landmark in medical history Vesalius's stunning 16th-century anatomy treatise Alice's Adventures Under Ground Written and illustrated by Lewis Carroll Baybars ' magnificent Qur'an Epitome of sumptuous Arabic calligraphy Bible from Ethiopia Commissioned by Emperor Iyasu in around 1700 Blake's notebook Sketches and poems, including 'The Tyger‘ Classic of botanical illustration Elizabeth Blackwell's remarkable Herbal Codex Sinaiticus Extracts from a 1,600-year-old-Bible courtesy of the Partners of the Codex Sinaiticus Project Dutch Baroque Gardens Country houses and magnificent gardens First atlas of Europe Compiled by Mercator in the 1570s Flemish masters in miniature The superb so-called 'Golf Book' Glimpses of medieval life Selections from the famous Luttrell Psalter Glorious Hebrew prayer book The lavishly illustrated Golden Haggadah Henry VIII's Psalter Lavish production of 1540, with Henry’s own notes James Gillray satirical prints The impeachmnent of Warren Hastings Jane Austen's early work 'The History of England' in her own hand Leonardo's Codex Arundel Complete manuscript of notes and drawings (565 pages) Leonardo da Vinci selection A selection of his sketches (29 pages) Lisbon Hebrew Bible Survivor of 15th-century Jewish culture Masterpiece of the Renaissance Beautiful images from the Sforza Hours Mozart's musical diary The composer's own notes, from 1784 until his death Outstanding 15th-century church book The wonderful, and weighty, Sherborne Missal Pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon Art The priceless Lindisfarne Gospels Ramayana India's great epic in 17th-century paintings
Newspapers 2007+ THE TEMPLE OF PEACE: MR. GLADSTONE IN HIS STUDY AT HAWARDEN The Graphic (London, England), Thursday, May 19, 1898; Issue Special. Category: News
projects in partnership with publishers, external funding bodies and other sponsors and donors, technology providers, user communities and other content holders. Full costs of the project cost of access, delivery and sustainability. Assess each proposal in terms of: Our drivers for digitisation; Business models, IP and copyright issues, and access to content (through the Library’s Digitisation and Web Monitoring Group); Operational viability, technical standards, outputs and preservation issues
IMPACT: http://www.impact-project.eu Digital Lives AHRC funded project, focusing on the preservation of e-manuscripts PRESERV2 JISC funded project developing demonstrator preservation services, primarily to UK HE. BL involved in an advisory role Partners include TNA, Oxford and Southampton Universities ROAR Demonstrator: http://roar.eprints.org/ (see Preserv profile options) INSPECT Developing methodology to identify and categorise the significant properties of digital objects JISC funded BL involved in an advisory role Workshop at BL PLANETS: € 15m budget, 16 partners, 4 years Archival Sound Recordings: http://sounds.bl.uk Codex Sinaiticus: http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en IDP: http://idp.bl.uk 19th Century British Newspapers: http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/
And I haven’t even talked about – IPR & Copyright Costs Funding Digitisation equipment – software & hardware Quality Control IT Systems development