e-manuscripta Digitised Manuscript Material from Swiss Libraries and Archives

Overview and History

e-manuscripta (e-manuscripta.ch) is the portal for digitized manuscript material from Swiss libraries and archives. It was launched on 13 March 2013 as a cooperative project developed and financed by three Swiss university libraries: the ETH Library (ETH Zurich), the Universitätsbibliothek Basel (University Library Basel), and the Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Central Library Zurich). Since 2016, the three founding institutions have been joined in managing the portal by the Swiss National Library. The ETH Zurich handles technical support and infrastructure, while overall coordination and business leadership rests with the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. A comprehensive redesign in 2022 gave the platform a new interface and added IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) support.

Collections and Holdings

As of its 10th anniversary in 2023, e-manuscripta hosted more than one million digitized objects from Swiss libraries and archives. Holdings span the 6th to the 21st century and include handwritten text manuscripts, correspondence by individuals and institutions, music scores, manuscript maps, drawings, and photographs. Participating institutions include numerous Swiss university libraries, cantonal libraries, and specialized archives that have contributed their digitized manuscript collections to the platform.

Notable Features

Since 2018, e-manuscripta has offered a transcription tool enabling citizen science participants to transcribe and annotate manuscript documents online. The IIIF integration allows users to export digitized items into external viewers such as Mirador for comparative research. The platform has become one of the most innovative in Europe for digitized cultural heritage resources.

Access and Usage

All digitized documents on e-manuscripta are freely accessible online. PDFs can be downloaded at no cost. The platform is accessible on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.