John Stuart Blackie Collection conservation project, University of Edinburgh, Library and Centre for Research Collections
John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh, bequeathed his collection of about 360 rare books – mainly Greek – to the university where he taught from 1852 to 1882. With the support of the A. G. Leventis Foundation, this remarkable collection is in the process of being fully revealed for the first time. The first step of this process was to undertake much needed conservation work on over 230 volumes of the Blackie Collection as well as over 200 other rare Greek books in order to protect them and make them available for consultation. Detailed online descriptions of over 500 books were then created. The digitisation phase consists of selecting and processing images for digitisation, and is currently being completed by two Greek students in Edinburgh. This process has been enhanced by a developing collaboration with the University of Crete. When finalised, this project will make one of the most important UK-based Greek collections accessible to all scholars.
Grants given:
2015, 2017, 2018
