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John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Manchester Digital Collections and Exhibitions

Manchester Digital Exhibitions

We are developing Manchester Digital Exhibitions (MDE), an online exhibitions platform to allow digital visitors to engage with our collections and curated research online from anywhere in the world.

MDE draws together in-depth interpretation and exceptionally high-quality images of our collections offering a sustainable platform for narrative-based engagement with significant digital reach. The ongoing development of the platform offers opportunities to utilise innovative digital storytelling tools supported by IIIF, such as Exhibit.

Some of our exhibits include:

  • Travels in Tokugawa Japan created by visiting fellow Dr Sonia Favi as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Project Travel in Tokugawa Period Japan (1603-1868): Identity, Nation and Social Transformation.
  • The Many Faces of the Rylands Jewish Manuscripts curated by Philip Alexander (Professor Emeritus of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature) and Zsofia Buda (Curator, Global Manuscripts) as part of a project to digitise Hebrew manuscript collections, making them available for academic study and community engagement.
Item from Manchester Digital Collections. A beautifully decorated ketubah (marriage contract) recording the marriage of a Jewish couple in 19th century Calcutta.

Manchester Digital Collections

Manchester Digital Collections

Manchester Digital Collections

Manchester Digital Collections (MDC) is an online platform providing access to collections of digital objects curated around specific themes, with expert interpretation displayed alongside ultra-high-quality images.  It draws together digitised material from Cultural Institutions across the University, often developed as part of funded research projects. As well as images and high-quality descriptions, MDC hosts ‘digital editions’ of texts with associated transcriptions and translations (see the digital edition of the Mary Hamilton Papers (in progress) here). 

MDC’s support for IIIF images allows content to be seamlessly embedded on other platforms, for example within an MDE exhibit or a project website. MDC also supports the interoperability and reuse of data and so can provide opportunities for digital humanities engagement activities such as hackathons or creative reuse of images.  More simply, MDC can support digital collection encounters and ‘hybrid’ outreach activities.

As MDC develops, more interactive tools will allow further innovative engagement with our digital collections. We are also developing functionality to provide access to content produced by our world-leading advanced imaging techniques, such as 3D models of items that allow ‘digital handling’ and exploration. We are also interested in developing opportunities for engagement through ‘citizen science’ projects to create crowd-sourced transcriptions of texts or enrich existing collection descriptions.   

Projects hosted in MDC will incur considerable photography and metadata costs.  These need to be included in the bid costing. If you are interested in proposing a collection for MDC first have a conversation with the relevant curator and MDC Content Coordinator to talk through initial ideas and considerations.  For large, funded projects costings and advice can be provided.

See our Japanese Maps collection produced as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Project Travel in Tokugawa Period Japan (1603-1868): Identity, Nation and Social Transformation led by Dr. Sonia Favi (2019-2021).  The collection supported an associated MDE exhibition and a programme of digital collection encounters.