Digital libraries: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales manuscript to be digitized

Experts from the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library are to spend four days at a beautiful seventeenth century mansion to capture its world famous Canterbury Tales manuscript on camera  (22- 25 March). It is part of a 18-month project - funded by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) - which showcases the University of Manchester as one of the country's leading centres for digitisation of rare books, manuscripts and archives.

Visitors to the National Trust's Petworth House, Sussex, will be able to watch the team as they work with cutting edge equipment to record the early 15th century Geoffrey Chaucer manuscript in close detail.

The Petworth edition of the famous stories was hand written between 1420 and 1450, just a few years after they were first conceived by Geoffrey Chaucer.  The Tales relate a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims to create an ironic picture of 14th century English life. 

Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC, said: " What makes this project so exciting is that not only will the John Rylands Library be working with other organisations to make available online some rare and important scholarly works, but they will also be exploring business models for the long term viability of digitisation.