Vatican to digitise 3,000 library manuscripts

An estimated 3,000 manuscripts of the Vatican Apostolic Library will be digitalized over the next four years by Japanese firm Ntt Data, the first step in the planned digitalization of all the 82,000 manuscripts preserved in the library.

A room of the Vatican Apostolic Library [Credit: Ansa]

The agreement sealed on Thursday at the Vatican by Ntt Data and the Vatican Apostolic Library was presented to reporters by Mons. Jean-Louis Bruguès, a Vatican archivist and librarian, and Mons. Cesare Pasini, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, together with Ntt Data president and vice-president, Toshio Iwamoto and Toshio Iwai.

''Digitalizing the 82,000 manuscripts of the Vatican Apostolic Library is an effort we have undertaken years ago'', said Mons. Pasini. ''We have already created contacts with cultural institutions and companies sharing and supporting our endeavour. Other libraries as well are cataloguing manuscripts: our project means to be part of an overall plan for the entire, immense range of our manuscripts which could lead to the digitalization of 40 million pages''.

''With the 3,000 manuscripts which are part of the first phase of collaboration with Ntt we can reach a total of 15,000 manuscripts digitalized in four years'', said Mons. Pasini. The digitalization of manuscripts will be ''a real effort in favour of conservation and the divulgation of knowledge at the service of culture worldwide'', he noted.

Source: ANSA [March 20, 2014]