The National Library of Ireland announced today that it has made freely available online its collection of Joyce’s manuscripts and notebooks. Although the images are of relatively poor quality, they give us access to these materials for the first time outside of the library’s reading room. The materials are linked to the library catalog and can be accessed and downloaded as pdf files.
According to the press release, this is part of a multi-stage digital project and high resolution images will be made available on Bloomsday. In the meantime, better viewing software is being developed that will facilitate close study of the manuscripts.
This is terrific news for Joyce scholars across the world. I happily welcome this development and look forward to seeing the new work on Joyce this kind of material might now make possible.
