manuscripta.se

Digitization of the West Norse Manuscripts in Swedish Collections

Project meeting

Uppsala University, 6 September 2022

Dr Patrik Granholm, National Library of Sweden

Digital catalogue of medieval and early modern manuscripts in Sweden
Developed and maintained by the National Library of Sweden
Current status
- 402 manuscripts (245 digitised)
- ca 80 000 images
- ca 10 000 authority files for persons, organisations, places, works, and bibliographical records
The long-term aim is to include all medieval and early modern manuscripts in Sweden

Encoded in TEI using customised schemas and cataloguing guidelines
TEI is well suited for this since the structure of format is structured according to the four parts used in detailed scholarly descriptions:
- Description of contents
- Codicological description
- Provenance
- Bibliography
TEI supports descriptions of codicological units
TEI markup enables advanced search queries, and easy conversion between metadata formats

The digitised manuscripts are displayed using IIIF
IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) develops and maintains a set of APIs for delivering and sharing images on the web
IIIF has had a huge impact in the cultural sector and is widely used by libraries and museums worldwide
Key benefits of IIIF
- Advanced, interactive functionalities like manipulation of size, scale, region of interest, rotation of images etc.
- Possibility to link to a specific image, or even a section of an image, with a stable URI
- Possibility to retrieve images from other image servers that support IIIF

Built entirely using open-source software
- eXist-db, an XML database with indexing and search functionality, and functions for converting TEI to HTML
- Images served with IIIF using IIPImage Server, and the Mirador image viewer
- Editing interface built with React.js
Source code and TEI files available on GitHub
Images available free of restriction (CC0 Public Domain)

manuscripta.se

patrikgranholm.com

patrik.granholm@kb.se