We have been working hard, and we are super-proud to announce that the DMMapp 3.0 is out there and available for everyone to explore and enjoy!
Critics say:
"It's the best DMMapp yet!""It just works!""10/10 would DMMapp again"
No they don't, but we like to imagine they do! Let's go and see what has happened in the past months.
"We are dedicated to making digitized collections as easy to access as possible." That's the objective of the DMMapp Beta. Since its release, the DMMapp has been linking digital repositories to it users; but we believe it can always be better. That is why we have been reworking the app and are now releasing a public beta version for users to test and give us feedback.
With this release we particularly wanted to address various issues, mainly regarding performance and usability.
The Biblioteca de la Universidad de Barcelona one of the many new digitized libraries to the DMMapp (we are now at 500+!). The link to the Barcelona University Library was given to us through a tweet from @Archivalia_kg (he also has an excellent blog in German!)
Marlay cutting It. 12 - The Burial of St Monica at Ostia (left) and St Augustine Departing for Africa (right). That little jewel in the in the center of Cambridge that is the Fitzwilliam Museum is home to an extraordinary collection of paintings, engravings, and most importantly for us, digitized medieval manuscripts. These manuscripts are available online (and linked in our app) so we went to give a look to see what wealth is available to us.
We are extremely proud to communicate that the DMMapp has now reached (and surpassed... we are adding a few in the next days!) the 400 links milestone! This means that, thanks to everyone's submissions, we can link to more than 400 libraries, archives, repositories, etc. that are home to digitized medieval manuscripts! You can find the latest additions on our tidy list. Also, here's a short list of the latest additions:
How does one describe an amazing experience that involves history, Italy, pizza and a ton of amazing medieval manuscripts coming from the most famous monastery in Southern Italy? Let's try starting from the beginning: From June the 29th until July the 3rd we had the privilege of attending the first Cassino Summer School, or better, the first International Summer School in Cassino (Italy): Trends in Manuscript Studies - Sources, Issues and Technologies, organized by Liber, Libro e Ricerca, and it was great; we would like to share the experience with you readers.
One of my biggest passions has always been astronomy: studying the names of the stars, the constellations' myths, the planets' movements. This passion has often met my other big love, medieval manuscripts, in the form of awesome astronomical manuscripts. The combination has always been fascinating to me: "Wow, someone hundreds (or thousands) of years ago was looking at the same stars I am looking at today, and was in love as much as me with the spectacle!" If you have ever had a chance to browse through an astronomical manuscript, you will have certainly noticed one thing: the constellations represented on parchment only seldom resemble the ones we see in the night sky. Sometimes, they look just like random dots. Let's go and give a look at one of such books; an extraordinary one, to be precise, created more than a thousand years ago: the Leiden Aratea.
De natura rerum - Staatsbibliothek Bamberg Msc.Nat.1 Today we are going to give a look at the Digital collection of Bamberg State Library. A fantastic collection of manuscripts, fully digitized, in high quality, and available for everyone to browse, explore, and study. Actually, we should be speaking of collections, plural, since two collections are present: The collection "Manuscripts of Henry II" is traced back to the emperor Henry II, who founded the bishopric of Bamberg in 1007; and the new digital collection. Let's see! Bamberger Apokalypse - 14r - The first horseman, Conquest on the White Horse - The text reads: Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. - Revelation 6:1-2˄
Well, this is the third time here at Sexy Codicology that we are delighted to communicate that the Vatican Library has, once again, digitized and made available a few hundreds new manuscripts! Since we started the DMMmaps project, the Vatican Library has more than doubled the number of digitally available books. Plus, they have reorganized the home page: Where once you could see the endless list of manuscripts available (now 1'500+!), there is now a tidier page showing the collections and then number of digitized books you may find inside. An old problem is still present: it is impossible to know which were the most recently uploaded books; unfortunately there is no RSS, nor is there any specific announcement which tells us what is new. Too bad. I guess it is up to us users to explore!