In a comment a few posts ago, JTS’ new digitization project was brought to the attention of the Talmud Blog by the indefatigable maven of online resources, S. Luckily, I’ve been working out of the JTS library for the past couple of weeks and was able to catch Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian Prof. David Kraemer for a brief chat on the library’s various digitization projects.

Manuscript digitization at JTS can be divided into three categories. First, the genizah material from the ENA collection is nearly available in its entirety via Friedberg. Some of the fragments had been available already on earlier versions of the Lieberman database, but even those have been re-photographed for FGP.

Hebrewmanuscripts.org includes pictures of microfilmed manuscripts. While the images aren’t the best, the process was quick (the site now includes material from HUC as well).

Since they last microfilmed their manuscripts in 1990, JTS has acquired another 800-900 items. The funds originally intended for the microfilm of these manuscripts have been reassigned for a digitization of them. So far around 100 have been taken care of. These manuscripts don’t have surrogates and therefore take priority over other items in the library’s collection. After they are done being digitized, the focus will be turned to the most artistically distinguished manuscripts, some of which are already available through their Special Treasure site.

Under the leadership of Prof. Kraemer, the JTS library seems well qualified to take on the exciting challenges of the digital age. For more information on their projects I would suggest checking out their Facebook page.

Apology: This post was originally published before being finished while travelling from my iPad to my computer. Funny how a post on digitization would suffer from its author’s own digital ineptitude…