Launched in July of 2015, the Digital.Bodleian website created quite the buzz amongst librarians, historians, and other communities invested in increasing access to cultural heritage online. While Oxford University’s Bodleian Library has been digitizing parts of their amazing collections for almost 20 years, the results were either spread across separate project websites or accessible only by visiting the library in person. Digital.Bodleian changes all that, bringing together more than 115,000 high-resolution images of books, manuscripts, maps, and more in one gorgeous interface. From the main page, users may either begin by searching the entire site by keyword, or by browsing through collections on topics ranging from Kalighat Paintings to The Entomologist’s Useful Compendium to the medieval Gough Map. Collections can also be filtered by types, including Early Printed Books, Maps, and Ephemera, as well as broad topics, such as History and Politics, and Science and Natural History. With features that allow users to curate their own collections, add notes and tags to individual images, share via social media, and even export images and metadata from the collection, expert researchers and curious amateurs alike will have plenty of reasons to revisit this growing resource.
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