Enfilade

At EMOB: Free Trial of Gale Cengage’s British Literary MSS Online

Posted in resources by Editor on April 12, 2011

As noted at Early Modern Online Bibliography (10 April 2011) . . .

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For the next three weeks, emob readers can explore Gale Cengage’s British Literary Manuscripts Online for free. The database contains facsimile images of manuscripts digitized from microfilm. Though the texts themselves cannot be searched, their metadata  can be.  Authors can also be browsed alphabetically. The resolution is good, and legibility can be enhanced through digital magnification and brightness and contrast controls. Line tools and highlighting tools allow for digital annotation.

The product consists of two parts, both of which are included in the free trial: part one includes Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts; part two includes manuscripts written between 1660-1900.

On the database’s home page, the following links to online tutorials help with basic paleography. . . .

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The full posting at EMOB along with the link for free access is available here»

How I wish, incidentally, I had had access to the paleography tutorials before my first forays into manuscript research! These alone make the posting worth visiting (exploring the other offerings will, for me, have to wait until the weekend). Warm thanks to Anna Battigelli and Eleanor Shevlin for sharing news of the free trial with Enfilade readers. -CAH

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