The Vatican Library plans to digitize 40 million pages of archives — and it could take 109 years to do so. (But I wouldn’t be surprised if they find a way to speed up the process.) The library was founded in 1451 and it holds about 82,000 manuscripts, some of which date back 1,800 years. Working with a Japanese firm, it will take the library about four years to digitize the first batch of 3,000 manuscripts. Some of these documents may go online as early as this year.
To read more about this monumental project, visit This is How the Vatican Will Digitize Millions of its Documents.
In comparison, I would be curious to know the size of the Library and Archives Canada and Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec’s collections. If it will take more than 50 years, I probably shouldn’t wait. At least one person has suggested LAC needs 70 years.
Thanks to Caroline Marshall Pointer of 4YourFamilyStory for posting this on Facebook.
