I’m obviously interested in seeing the foundations of faith strengthened in Cambridge in the straightforward sense of the words. But as a manuscript man I was also delighted to hear today that Cambridge University Library has announced visionary plans to become a digital library for the world – following a £1.5m lead gift pledged by Dr Leonard Polonsky.
The CUL is home to more than seven million books and some of the greatest collections in existence, including a superb science collection with papers from Newton and Darwin, Flamsteed, Halley, Clerk Maxwell and Hawking.
But its faith collections are just as breathtaking. They include
- some of the oldest and most significant Qur’ans ever to be uncovered, as well an Eighth Century copy of Surat al-Anfal.
- the world’s largest and most important collection of Jewish Genizah materials, including the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection – 193,000 fragments of manuscripts as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- an incomparable collection of Christian manuscripts including the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (one of the most important Greek New Testament manuscripts), the Book of Deer and the Book of Cerne.
The first collections to be digitised will be therefore be entitled The Foundations of Faith and The Foundations of Science. The goal for both is that they become ‘living libraries’ with the capacity to grow and evolve.
University Librarian Anne Jarvis said: "Faith and science will be the two cornerstones of the project, both of fundamental importance in our quest to understand the world and our place in it.”
http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2010/06/university-of-cambridge-to-create.html
Filed under: books, Cambridgeshire, faith, science
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The library at 

Phil Groom has posted breaking news on his
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It’s that time of the month, and news updates are flooding into my inbox. The latest is from Theos, who are flagging up their next publication God and Government to be launched on 22 October. It is 

