Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Digital Collections (New Haven: Yale University) <http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Literary manuscript collections include: James Boswell; Edith Wharton; Edmund Wilson; Eugene O’Neill; Ezra Pound; Gertrude Stein; J.M. Barrie; James Baldwin; Walt Whitman; William Carlos Williams, as well as other more general literary collections.
- Extremely high quality image.
- Ability to download images.
- Basic comparison tool that leads to related manuscripts.
- User interface is very basic, just the ability to zoom.
- No contextual paratexts.
Bodleian Library, Bodleian Digital Collections (Oxford: University of Oxford) <http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/subjects-and-libraries/collections/digital> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Home of many manuscript collections including: Early Manuscripts at Oxford University; The Thomas Gray Archive; William Godwin’s Diary; Shelley-Godwin Archive; First World War Poetry Digital Archive; Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive; Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts.
- Each collection differs but all proved high quality images of select manuscripts.
- Examples: The Shelley-Godwin Archive has a neat transcription tool that allows the reader to toggle the transcription in a separate box. The First World War Poetry Archive has a more basic interface but provides more contextual material and supporting images.
Cornell University Library, Digital Collections (Ithaca: Cornell University) <http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/collections/digitalcollections.php> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Most notable for the Cornell Wordsworth Collection, though also has digitised versions of The Divine Comedy, and various online exhibitions.
- The interface is very basic, with the ability to turn manuscript pages, but not a sophisticated as the British Library’s website.
- Manuscripts that have been digitised are a small selection of the holdings.
Harry Ransom Center, Digital Collections (Austin: University of Texas) <http://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org> [Accessed 8 October 2014]
- Limited selection online, including: David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King manuscript; Lewis Carroll Photography Collection; Bronte Family Collection; Sherlock Holmes Collection; Evelyn Waugh’s Victorian Blood Book. This is accompanied by various digital archives of photographs and artwork.
- High quality images.
- Some good contextual information about the relevance of the specific manuscripts.
- Interface is very basic, with the ability to zoom in only.
Huntington Library, Huntington Digital Library (Pasadena: Huntington Library) <http://hdl.huntington.org/> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Limited selection online including: Shelley’s Notebooks; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.
- Images are a little small, but there is a zoom function.
- Only additional material is bibliographic data.
- Interface is the same as the Ransom Center’s.
John Rylands Library, Image Collections (Manchester: University of Manchester) http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet/allCollections [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Not many literary manuscripts in the collection.
- High quality images.
- Basic user interface.
Lichfield Cathedral, Digitized Illuminations (Lexington: University of Kentucky) <https://lichfield.as.uky.edu/> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Notable for the unique digitisation approach, attempting to recreate the 3D aspect of the illuminated manuscripts.
- Users can manipulate the digital image, both zooming in and out and turning the manuscript around.
- Images, perhaps due to the ongoing nature of the project, are rougher than some digitisation projects.
National Library of Scotland, Digital Resources (Edinburgh: NLS) <http://www.nls.uk/digital-resources> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Some digitised manuscripts including: Robert Louis Stevenson; Robert Burns etc. Many of the digital resources here are in-depth biographies and contexts for Scottish authors, including Muriel Spark.
- Very basic user interface. Images cannot be manipulated at all.
- Images are not as good quality as other digital resources.
National Library of Wales, Digital Gallery (Aberystwyth: NLW) <http://www.llgc.org.uk/collections/digital-gallery/digitalmirror-manuscripts/> [Accessed 9 October 2014]
- Digital manuscripts by writers including Dylan Thomas and John Cowper Powys. There are also many manuscripts from the Early Modern Period, the Middle Ages and the Early Ages.
- Image quality is high.
- User interface is basic, but does allow zooming in to the text.
- There are several paragraphs of contextual writing for each manuscript.
English Literary Heritage 