Book of Deer

Book of Deer

This digital version of a tenth-century Gospel book, now called the Book of Deer, can be found under the "Digital Image Collections" section of the "Digital Library" tab on the Cambridge University Library website. It is accompanied by seven other online exhibitions, including the Gutenberg Bible and the Genizah Online Database.

Collection Principles: The "Digital Image Collections" homepage states that these collections of images are from some of Cambridge's most important holdings. This, then, was presumably the guiding principle in selecting what would be digitized. Rights regarding these images seem to be a paramount concern. Another of the online exhibition, that of the Gutenberg Bible, can only be accessed from computers at Cambridge University or on their server. And with regard to the Book of Deer, higher resolution images are only available from PCs in the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge. If you try to click on one of the page images to enlarge it, you are taken to the dreaded "Forbidden" page that tells you that you do not have permission to access that webpage on the server you are using. Additionally, at the bottom of each webpage is a copyright notice.

Object Characteristics: This digital version of the Book of Deer presents itself in much the same way that the physical object does. One can view the front cover, and then proceed through the manuscript viewing the verso and recto of facing pages together. As accessed from a non-Cambridge server, one does not have the ability to zoom or see larger images. One can jump to a specific folio from a pull down menu on the Book of Deer main page.

Metadata: Very little of the metadata associated with this object is visible to the viewer. Below the image of each page is its folio designation and the statement that higher resolution images are available only from PCs in the MSS Reading Room. As mentioned above, there is also a copyright notice on each webpage. There is an introduction to the Book of Deer accessible from the Book of Deer main page that provides information about the physical object, complete with suggestions for further reading. However, any data about the digital object itself is not included.

Intended Audience: Presumably, the intended audience is anyone who is able to access this object via the internet. Access is somewhat limited, given that higher resolution images are not available to the general public (though the reason for this is not provided). However, this digital version of the Book of Deer does provide access to a manuscript that previously was available only to those who could physically visit Cambridge. This digital version would probably not be of much use to serious scholars remotely accessing it, as the images are much too small to do much with, and there is no way to make them any larger.