The David Simonsen Manuscripts - a user's guide

The digitized manuscripts in the collection can be found and accessed though different channels.

1. The David Simonsen Manuscripts (www.kb.dk/manus/judsam/2009/maj/dsh/en)

This web page is the main web page of the entire collection of digitized manuscripts, which forms part of Digital Editions from The Royal Library, Copenhagen. Individual manuscripts can be found though the “bread crumb” path on top of the page, by choosing Country of origin, Shelfmark or Language, or by clicking on the thumbnail picture on the main web page. At the bottom of the landing page (see below), the Categories pane gives the possibility of navigating, from one of these three categories to another.

A couple of things to keep in mind are:
- When choosing Shelfmark, be aware that the order of the thumbnail pictures does NOT correspond to the order of the shelfmark links in the “bread crumb” area (the green field at the top of the page). To access a specific manuscript with a known shelfmark, please navigate using the “bread crumb”. For technical reasons, when shelfmarks cover more than one volume, the volumes are listed as “a”, “b” etc.

- When using the search window on top of the page, in which searches are possible in Latin or Hebrew characters, the search will be executed in the metadata for several digital collections on the Royal Library website, not only The David Simonsen Manuscripts .

2. REX

All manuscripts can be found and accessed through The Royal Library’s online catalogue REX, by searching the catalogue using Latin or Hebrew characters. The link in the catalogue record will direct the user to the relevant manuscript’s individual landing page. For the whole collection, click here.

3. Google etc.

All metadata are made available to all major search engines.

The landing page of the individual manuscript

General remarks

All manuscripts have their own individual landing pages, where relevant data are shown and the digital facsimile can be accessed through clicking on the picture, which typically shows the front cover of the work. It is not possible at this stage to download other parts of the manuscript than the picture shown on the landing page. However, all pictures/openings have their own web address, which is shown underneath the opening. For those who nevertheless want to save an individual opening as a pictrue , a possible "work around" is to make a screenshot of the relevant opening, and paste that into a word processing program (or another program of one's choice). High resolution files etc. (of whole works or single pages) can be ordered via the contact information on the landing page of the manuscript in question; for prices, see http://www.kb.dk/en/priser/foto/index.html.

When printing parts of a page, a page or an opening, 'landscape' orientation is strongly recommended to obtain the best result. Please do not be alarmed if the preview looks fuzzy.

The transcription aims at being consistent with the system presently used in The Royal Library’s catalogue REX (no diacritics, except ḥ and Ḥ signifying ח, and ‘ signifying ע (and in very few instances א); gemination is not indicated).

Metadata shown on the landing page

Please note that not all fields are applicable to all manuscripts.

Title: in original scripts
Subtitle: in original scripts and in transcription
Alternative title: variant names of the manuscript and/or the contained work(s)
Transcribed title: the title in transcription (for transcription principles, see above)
Author: author(s) in transcription and original scripts
Corporate author: organisation(s) to which the manuscript is related; in transcription and with Hebrew letters
Contributor: author(s) to parts of the manuscript, and other contributors. In transcription and with Hebrew letters
Scribe: in transcription and with Hebrew letters
Patron: in transcription and with Hebrew letters
Note: a short description of the contents of the volume
Resource type: always “text (manuscript)”; (stated for technical reasons)
Medium: physical medium, e.g. parchment
Extent: the number of fols. etc.
Size: height x width of the volume in centimetres
Languages: language codes according to the RFC4646 standard
Script: in general as given in Rafael Edelmann’s list (see blow)
Script (detailed): additional comments on scripts and script types
Place of origin: known or assumed on the basis of other sources; if unknown given as “[s.l.]” (i.e. sine loco).
Country of origin: country codes according to the ISO3166 standard (xx = no geographical assignment possible). When not given in any of the sources used, the descriptions available regarding type of script have sometimes been used to tentatively place the manuscript geographically. As a result, Germany is heavily overrepresented; many of the manuscripts labelled as being German, are more likely to be from Northern, Central or Eastern Europe. In the Cod. Heb. Add.-collection, several of the un-assigned MSS may be Danish. It is our hope, that future examination of the un-assigned manuscripts will make it possible to “re-assign” them to the correct countries of origin.
Date created: secular (and - when stated -  Jewish) date, in transcription and/or Hebrew, with ISO8601 used as standard. For conversions, http://www.hebcal.com/converter was used. 
Topic: Topic(s)/Genre(s) of the text(s) in the manuscript; the list of topics is available here. They can also be used for searches in the search window on the collection's starting page.
Shelf mark: the shelfmark of the volume
Collection: holding collection within The Royal Library
Selected references:
- Allony & Kupfer 1964 = רשימת תצלומי כתבי-היד העבריים במכון, List of photocopies in the institute. Jerusalem: State of Israel, Ministry of Education and Culture, the Institute of Hebrew Manuscripts & Rubin Mass, 1957-1968. Bd. 2: Hebrew manuscripts in the libraries of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland / by N. Allony and E. (F.) Kupfer, 1964;
- IJA vol. 5 = Index of Jewish art, iconographcial index of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts, ed. by Bezalel Narkiss, Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, in collab. with Jonathan Benjamin ... [et al.]Jerusalem : The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities : Paris : Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes. Vol. 5: Illuminated manuscripts of the Copenhagen collection at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, by Bezalel Narkiss and Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, with the collab. of Christine Evans ... [et al.], 1994;
- IMHM = The Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem (http://jnul.huji.ac.il/imhm/). For more on this database, please cf. Manuscripts in the Judaica Collection.
Apart from these sources, a couple of resources not available to the public have been used :
- a card catalogue by Rafael Edelmann (head of The Judaica Collection, 1932-1970)
- a typed list (data more or less identical with the card catalogue) by Rafael Edelmann 
It should be noted, that the data have been harmonized and shortened.
Comment: further data on the manuscript, the digitization process etc.

Accessing the digital facsimile

To access the digital facsimile, click on the picture, or on the green arrow in its right upper hand corner. This opens a viewer in a new window. A user's guide to the viewer can be accessed via the Help-link in the upper right hand corner of the landing page.