Books from the HMML Basement is dedicated to the special collections at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. The collections hold over 10,000 rare printed books, along with several European, Ethiopian and other manuscripts. The articles in this blog will offer insights into these collections. You can search the contents of this blog by typing a term in the space below and clicking on "search."
The staff at HMML (the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library) is always looking at ways to improve access to the Library's manuscripts and books. Recently I tried my hand at making a couple simple video-slideshows to demonstrate the contents of two of our more interesting manuscripts: The Kacmarcik Book of Hours and a 14th-century Graduale manuscript (choir book for the Mass). Here are the results of these preliminary experiments--one lasts less than a minute and the other about two minutes. Both are silent (I don't know about using music that may be under copyright, so I am avoiding that for now.
HMML has digitally photographed both of these manuscripts in their entirety. The Kacmarcik Book of Hours is already available in our free online image database, Vivarium (www.hmml.org/vivarium) and the Graduale will soon be available there as well. There is also a fuller description of the Kacmarcik Book of Hours at the HMML Manuscript Studies Wiki: http://manuscriptstudies.pbworks.com/w/page/48545269/Kacmarcik%20Book%20of%20Hours
