Hidden treasures revealed to the nation

Winners announced for British Library competition for public libraries

A high profile awards ceremony was held at the British Library's flagship St Pancras building last night to reveal the winners and highly commended entries in a national competition to make spectacular treasures from public libraries available via the web.

Between last May and the closing date at the end of June, librarians across the UK sent in some 82 entries that have dazzled the judges with their uniqueness and variety.

The winning items range from a 12th century legal work containing the earliest record of the English language to a fascinating first-hand account of life in rural Caernarfonshire in the middle of the 19 th century, as experienced by an unusually observant 14-year-old; from a spectacular illuminated missal to a beautifully illustrated war record book containing stories of evacuees, enemy airmen, the coming of the American army and even jam making!

The Library, in collaboration with the Society of Chief Librarians, Scottish library chiefs and Microsoft, launched the competition to help public libraries in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland uncover the items in their collections that most deserve to be transformed into Turning the Pages 2.0 ‘virtual texts'. (See: www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html)

The five winning libraries will each have thirty pages of their nominated item digitised, converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 format and shared with the world via the British Library website for three years, giving these treasures a far wider audience than would have ever been possible through traditional exhibition. Each Turning the Pages 2.0 package is sponsored by Microsoft. Highly commended libraries will be eligible to purchase a hugely discounted Turning the Pages 2.0 ‘toolkit' allowing them to build and manage their own online libraries.

For full details visit: http://www.bl.uk/news/2007/pressrelease20070905.html

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