Introducing the Shakespeare's Quartos Project

Many of you will have seen the news about MITH’s most recent grant activity, a new NEH/JISC funded project on digitizing Shakespeare’s Quartos undertaken in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library, the British Library, the Bodleian at Oxford, and various other prestigious institutions. More detail is available here. The nearly $120,000 NEH grant will provide initial funds for one year to create a technical proof of concept “working model” for the project by digitizing all 32 pre-1641 versions of Hamlet held by the participating libraries. “The JISC/NEH initiative gave us the opportunity and the incentive to attempt a truly international, collaborative, digital project,” says Folger Project Director RICHARD KUHTA. “The guidelines challenged us to think collectively about what was possible, and to realize a shared ambition. It was exactly the prompt we needed to launch a conversation that transformed geographically distant collections into partner institutions.” NEIL FRAISTAT adds, “We are proud to have as partners such institutions as the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, the British Library, and the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. This grant caps what has been an extraordinary year for MITH, in which it has received five major grants, covering the gamut from Shakespeare’s Quartos to the preservation of Virtual Worlds.” In this Digital Dialogue, we will introduce the project to the university community, solicit initial feedback, and discuss ways to involve interested constituents as our work progresses. The discussion will be led by NEIL FRAISTAT (Professor of English and Director, MITH), JIM KUHN (Head of Collection Information Services, Folger), RICHARD KHUTA (Librarian, Folger), and DOUG RESIDE (Assistant Director, MITH).