UCLA's virtual library of manuscripts

I recently received an email from my friend Dot that originated at the UCLA Office of Media Relations. It highlighted a virtual library of manuscripts held at UCLA. The library launched in 2008 and the catalog now links to almost 1000 manuscripts in various languages.

I tested it out using the example from the news release, Matthew Paris’s The Life of King Edward the Confessor. There is no subject search, however, you can search by author, date, provenance, shelf mark, language, repository, text title, and bibliography. The search field has a handy auto fill in feature, too. I tried searching by title and received no hits. I had to look up the record using Paris, Matthew. The records themselves do not contain the title of the work itself and the metadata is sparse but each record has a link to its originating location and their high quality images. It is far too much fun to play around with and I highly recommend it with a glass of brandy and a tobacco pipe.