Click here to skip to content

Hidden treasures brought to life

British Library announces national search for the greatest hidden treasures in UK public libraries

The British Library, London, 30 January 2007 - The British Library today launched a spectacular national competition to help public libraries across the UK to unearth their hidden treasures and share them online with an international audience of millions.

As the British Library's Chief Executive Lynne Brindley unveiled Turning the Pages 2.0 - a remarkable 3-D system that allows people to explore digitised versions of the world's greatest books and manuscripts - she announced the first details of a competition which challenges public libraries in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to uncover the items in their collections that most deserve to be converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 'virtual texts' and shared with the world via the British Library website at www.bl.uk

"For the past decade we have created Turning the Pages versions of our greatest treasures, from Mozart's musical diary to Lewis Carroll's manuscript of Alice 's Adventures," said Lynne Brindley. "Turning the Pages 2.0, which has been developed with Microsoft to demonstrate their new Windows Vista operating system, enables an even richer user experience and speeds up the process of creating a virtual text.

"To help fulfil our role as a truly national library, we are today launching a competition, in collaboration with the Society of Chief Librarians and Scottish library authorities, which will be open to public libraries across the United Kingdom. The prize will be Turning the Pages 2.0 production and hosting packages worth £10,000 each for four public libraries in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to give them the opportunity to make Turning the Pages versions one of their own treasures available online. In this way we hope to make treasures of local, national and international significance available to be enjoyed by the widest range of people."

The announcement was made at the consumer launch of Windows Vista, which took place at the Library's flagship building at St Pancras this morning. The event saw the reunification of dazzling Turning the Pages 2.0 versions of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, Codex Arundel and Codex Leicester, and was hosted by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Culture Minister David Lammy, who was also at the launch event, said: "Since its launch, Turning the Pages has reached out to new audiences with an immediate power, allowing dynamic and interactive access to iconic works of global importance. The competition being launched today gives public libraries across the country the chance to get in on the action, and put in a bid to create their own Turning the Pages. I hope that many of them will take up this challenge, and engage their communities in thinking about the books that are important to them. I greatly look forward to hearing about the winning projects."

Full details of the competition will be rolled out in February.

For further information and images please contact:

British Library Press Office +44 (0)20 7412 7110

Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office (telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7113, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk) or Lawrence Christensen (telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7114, email: lawrence.christensen@bl.uk)

Notes for editors:

  1. The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The British Library's collections include 150 million items from every era of written human history beginning with Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC, right up to the latest e-journals. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk
  2. Microsoft was founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
  3. The reunited Codex Arundel and Codex Leicester will be displayed on the British Library website at www.bl.uk for six months from today. 15 of the other existing Turning the Pages treasures - including the Lindisfarne Gospels, Mozart's musical diary and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Underground - will also be available in the Turning the Pages 2.0 format. For users without Windows Vista the existing Shockwave versions of all the Turning the pages texts will continue to be available.
  4. In addition to the Leonardo Turning the Pages 2.0, the following items in the British Library's collection are now available on Turning the Pages 2.0 and also in their original Shockwave format at www.bl.uk :
  • Lindisfarne Gospels (circa 700): one of the most magnificent manuscripts of the early Middle Ages written and decorated at the end of the seventh century by the monk Eadfrith who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698
  • Sultan Baybars' Qur'an - a masterpiece of Arabic calligraphy, produced in Cairo between 1304-1306 AD (704-705 in the Muslim calendar
  • Golden Haggadah: a lavishly illustrated fourteenth century Hebrew Manuscript from Spain (a Haggadah is the Hebrew Service Book used in Jewish households on Passover Eve)
  • The Luttrell Psalter (circa 1325-1335): one of the most famous medieval manuscripts because of its rich illustrations of everyday life in the early fourteenth century
  • Sforza Hours: a masterpiece of Renaissance art by celebrated artists Giovan Pietro Birago and Gerard Horenbout
  • The Sherborne Missal (circa 1400): the largest, most lavishly decorated medieval service book (containing the order of service then used in the Roman Catholic Church) to have survived the Reformation intact
  • The Diamond Sutra: a Chinese Buddhist scroll printed in 868 AD, the world's oldest, dated, printed book
  • The Golf Book: a masterpiece of Flemish manuscript painting. Produced in the 1540s by Flemish artist Simon Bening, this book of hours features devotional texts to accompany private prayer and painted scenes of contemporary life, work and pastimes through the seasons of the year
  • Elizabeth Blackwell's Herbal (1737-39): George III's copy of a beautiful botanical text
  • Andreas Vesalius' Anatomy - a landmark medical work of the sixteenth century and one of the most influential works in the history of Western medicine. It contains beautifully detailed anatomical engravings by artists from the workshop of Titian
  • Mercator's Atlas: a stunning 90-page digitisation of Gerardus Mercator's sixteenth century Atlas of Europe - the most important surviving body of Mercator's work in a single volume
  • Jane Austen's 'History of England': written when she was just 15 years old, the entire 36-page document including waspish pen-portraits of key historical figures
  • Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1864): the fully-digitised first version of what eventually became 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' containing 90 pages and 37 illustrations.
  • Mozart's Thematic Catalogue: This manuscript is Mozart's record of his compositions in the last seven years of his life, and thus is a uniquely important document.
  • The Notebook of William Blake: William Blake is famous today as an imaginative and original poet, painter, engraver, and mystic. Blake wrote and sketched in this notebook, which came into his possession after his brother's death in 1787, for 30 years.