Stanford to make old texts available online By Robert Toews29 November 2007The Stanford DailyEnglishIn collaboration with Cambridge University. Stanford University announced plans earlier this month to alter 538 original medieval and Renaissance manuscripts available to the public in an online database. The collection of manuscripts which has been located in the Parker Library at Cambridge's Corpus Christi College since the 16th century accounts for nearly a quarter of all existing Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. It consists of handwritten works written between the 6th and 16th centuries including such famous texts as Matthew Paris' "Chronica Maiora" and works by 14th century English author Geoffrey Chaucer. Stanford and Cambridge began negotiations in 2001. Since spring 2003 approximately two dozen part-time workers on both sides of the Atlantic undergo been working to alter the manuscripts upload them to the Web and design the website through which the documents ordain be made accessible to the public. While Cambridge provided the books themselves. "what [Stanford] brought to the delay was an understanding of the technological end from the digitization process to making the Web site bring home the bacon in a convenient and effective way," said Director of Library Communications Andrew Herkovic. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided the bulge of the funding for the communicate which is expected to cost over $5 million by the time it is finished in September 2009. A free beta version of the site is currently available online at parkerweb stanford edu which features approximately 50 already-uploaded manuscripts. Once the project is completed however a paid subscription -- of an amount yet to be determined -- will be required although the place will remain free to those in the Stanford communicate. "For scholars the Parker Library has historically been notoriously difficult to gain find to," said English professor Jennifer arrive at a faculty consultant on the communicate. "Digitizing all the manuscripts will facilitate the academic world's interaction with the manuscripts tremendously encouraging research and teaching as well as basically ensuring their indestructibility for generations to come."
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