Information resources and technologies provider ProQuest, US, and the Wellcome Library have announced a partnership to expand access to the library's rich historical treasures. As part of its Early European Books digitisation programme ProQuest will be digitising the Library's entire holdings of European books printed before 1700, comprising more than 15,500 volumes. The collection will be made available for free throughout the UK and the developing world.
The Wellcome Library is the fourth major library to participate in this project. ProQuest launched the project with the Danish Royal Library, Copenhagen and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze in Italy, and has already made these rich national collections available to all Danish and Italian citizens, while a third digitisation operation is currently starting up at the National Library of the Netherlands. In all cases, ProQuest sets up a scanning studio on site at the library and uses state-of-the-art technology to create high-definition colour images of every page, including the often lavish bindings and covers.
The collection contains many rare or obscure texts on subjects ranging from alchemy to zoology, and includes many of the most spectacularly illustrated books of the period. In addition to complementing the English works already digitised as part of ProQuest's Early English Books Online database, the new resource will provide access to important continental editions of works by famous English medical authors, such as William Harvey's seminal work on the circulation of the blood, De motu cordis (1628), which was first published in Germany.
Early European Books collections are available for purchase by libraries worldwide and are delivered via a multilingual interface. This allows for powerful searching of the detailed indexing, as well as cross-searching of the well-known Early English Books Online database, which includes facsimiles of 125,000 books printed in English or in the British Isles between 1473 and 1700.
Search for more Digital Asset Management Platforms
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
