The HUMI Project has successfully digitized all pages of a Gutenberg Bible in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, USA. This was undertaken as part of the research initiative at DARC, Keio University entitled "Integrative Construction of Digital Archives for the Humanities" (representative: Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya, Director, the HUMI Project) supported by the Open Research Center of Japan's MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology).
Located in the center of Manhattan, the Morgan Library & Museum possesses many world-famous books and works of art collected by the famous financier John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), founder of J.P. Morgan & Co. (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.). Included in this collection are three copies of the Gutenberg Bible which, along with many other rare books, hold great interest for researchers in the humanities.
Most copies of the Gutenberg Bible are in two volumes, the first containing the Old Testament up to the end of the Psalms, and the second containing the rest of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament. The copy that the HUMI Project has digitized is unique among the surviving Gutenberg Bibles in that it contains only the Old Testament and is bound in one volume (approximately 1,000 pages). This volume is also remarkable from the bibliographical point of view since there are several pages with typesettings that are found only in this copy. Professor Masaaki Kashimura (Technical Director, the HUMI Project) and his team began their work at the Morgan Library & Museum on 15 October 2008. Over a period of two weeks they digitized all of the pages, as well as making some close-ups of beautifully illuminated decorations executed by a contemporary illuminator in Mainz, Germany.
The HUMI Project has earned a reputation internationally for its technique of photographing rare books using a special book cradle and a camera mount. It has cooperated with numerous leading research libraries in Europe to digitize rare books and manuscripts; however, this was the first time for the HUMI Project to cooperate with an institution in the USA.
In February 2008, the HUMI Project completed the digitization of a two-volume set of the Gutenberg Bible (approximately 1,300 pages in total) in the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester, UK. With the addition of the volume at the Morgan Library & Museum, the HUMI Project has now obtained high-resolution digital images of 19 volumes of the Gutenberg Bible, representing 11 sets from 9 different institutions, including Keio University. These images are used for research in the field of digital bibliography to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the dawn of Western typography. The images of some copies of the Gutenberg Bible are also made available on-line by the HUMI Project and the respective institutions that hold the original copies.
In addition to the Gutenberg Bible, the HUMI Project has digitized The Tale of Genji in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, as part of a research program led by Professor Toru Ishikawa. Comprising 54 volumes and 5,700 pages, this task required three separate expeditions to Dublin. The first two were made in February and November 2007, and the last was completed in July 2008, the year officially celebrated as the 1000th anniversary of The Tale of Genji.
