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The Bodleian Libraries’ Digital Bodleian website has uploaded its millionth image from its collections to be seen and freely used anywhere in the world.
Part of the University of Oxford, the Bodleian Libraries launched Digital Bodleian in 2015 as a free resource with direct access to its collections.
The website now displays a wide range of items from manuscripts, books, archives, photographs and paintings. These include British political election posters from the past 100 years, beautifully illuminated medieval manuscripts, centuries-old maps and Victorian board games.
The one millionth image to be digitised is from an original notebook of poet Jenny Joseph, who studied at St Hilda’s College and maintained a connection with Oxford all her life, showing the first draft of her poem, ‘Warning’, which was voted the ‘nation’s favourite poem’ in a BBC poll in 2006.
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian at the Bodleian Libraries, said: “Whether you are a student, a researcher or someone who has a personal passion we are delighted to be able to make our collections, built up over the last 400 years, for all to be able to view, download and use.”
The Bodleian Libraries have been digitising content since the early 1990s and were the first library outside the US to partner with Google as part of their mass-digitisation programme.
Adrian is the Editor of MuseumNext and has 20 years’ experience as a journalist, half of which has been writing for the cultural sector.
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