Online Resources for Book History and Print Culture

Printing of entire pages of text by means of large woodblocks is still carried out in China. Notably, because an archive of more than 300,000 printing blocks has been preserved by the government of Yangzhou, it is possible to print new editions of historical works, using the original blocks -- some of which may be several hundred years old.

Par-zo, one of the eighteen arts and crafts of Bhutan, can be can be traced far back to the 14th and 15th century. The primary objective of the art is printing and publication of religious texts in mass volume.

A portal to a huge range of videos and articles giving a solid introduction to the book c. 330 - 1300 C.E.

A brief overview of preparing parchment, cutting a quill, making ink, copying and illuminating text, and binding books, as these processes would have been done in the middle ages.

This essay from the Met includes hyperlinks to examples of typical attributes in books of hours, using many different examples from the museum's collections.

The Library of Congress' site includes thumbnail images of dozens of medieval manuscripts, including many books of hours. Click "see all" and browse the images -- each thumbnail connects to a catalog record, and clicking the image in the record gives you a page-by-page scan of the full manuscript.

Scans of Books of Hours and single leaves in McGill's collections, particularly helpful for working comparatively.

A major 2016 exhibit and digital project collecting records and images of medieval manuscripts in Boston-area collections.

An extensive catalog, free on archive.org, with contextual essays and excellent images of early manuscripts in Boston-area collections.

An explanation from the British Library of how to interpret calendars in books of hours, including visual symbolism, the Dominical Letters, and Golden Numbers.