Text and Illustration: The digitisation of a Medieval Manuscript

Abstract

This paper considers the choice of the medieval Aberdeen Bestiaryas the first project in Aberdeen University Library’s digitisationprogramme, and discusses some of the unusual features of themanuscript itself.

Attention is given to the content and depth of the accompanyingcommentaries, and particular notice is paid to the nature andextent of the textual apparatus (translation and transcription).The factors influencing the choice of (a) PhotoCD as the imagecapture method, and (b) JPEG as the image format fortransmission of the page images across the World Wide Webare examined. The importance of the Web design to theeffectiveness of the overall resource is emphasised.