eCodicesNL

Online Reading Room for Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections

eCodicesNL is the national digital portal for medieval manuscripts from Dutch heritage institutions. Through a user-friendly search interface, the project offers online access to high-quality digital images and expert descriptions of manuscripts from across the country.

Phase 1: Prototype of a National Manuscript Portal

The Netherlands has more than 90 institutions with medieval manuscripts. eCodicesNL developed a blueprint for a single joint manuscript portal. The team, consisting of Mariken Teeuwen, Irene van Renswoude, Renée Schilling (coordinator), Sebastiaan van Daalen and Rob Zeeman, started building a prototype in 2020, financed by the KNAW Institutes Fund.

The virtual reading room was launched in 2023 and can be visited via eCodicesNL.nl. For the prototype, the team collaborated with the Athenaeum Library (Deventer), Museum Huis van het Boek (The Hague) and Tresoar (Leeuwarden).

180 medieval manuscripts

The online reading room now contains 180 digitised manuscripts, ranging from illuminated books of hours and Old Frisian legal texts to medical manuals and recipes for hair loss. Together, they offer a unique insight into Dutch and European history, religion and science in the Middle Ages.

Visitors can browse through the manuscripts online, filter them and view them in detail using an integrated search and browsing function.

High-quality Digitisation

Two important components have been developed for eCodicesNL: digital photography and digital infrastructure. A specialised team photographs the manuscripts on location using a Traveller’s Conservation Copy Stand and professional cameras, so that the precious manuscripts safely remain in their own institutions.

Sustainable Digital Infrastructure

An important part of the project is the development of a sustainable and interoperable infrastructure. This means that the digital manuscripts are stored in such a way that they can be easily exchanged and used by other systems and projects. For example, the Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections (MMDC) dataset has been converted to a future-proof XML format, in accordance with the international TEI template for manuscript descriptions.

In addition, IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework), the global standard for the exchange of digital heritage images, has been applied. The result is an accessible interface that enables both specialists and the general public to search and study medieval manuscripts.

Current Collaborations

Since 2023, eCodicesNL has been collaborating with the Royal Library (KB) and Metamorfoze, which is continuing the digitisation of manuscripts under the leadership of Renée Schilling.

Contribution of the Huygens Institute

Within the Huygens Institute, Irene van Renswoude and Mariken Teeuwen are working on the further expansion of the portal: more collections, more extensive metadata, improved functionality and integration of Linked Open Data (data that is freely available and linked together so that it can be easily combined with other information on the web). Thus, eCodicesNL is gradually becoming the central gateway to all medieval manuscript collections in the Netherlands, both for scholars and the general public.

Phase 2: Linked Open Data

In 2023, we acquired a new grant from the PICA Foundation for a collaboration with Radboud University. In this phase, we are integrating Linked Open Data. This is data that is freely available and can be linked together so that it can be easily combined with other information on the web. The eCodicesNL portal will thus become part of the global Linked Data network and connect information about manuscripts in Dutch collections with the rest of the world.

Photographing in the Special Collections of Radboud University with the Traveller’s Conservation Copy Stand. Photo: Radboud Universiteit/Dick van Aalst.