The Bodleian Libraries, in conjunction with mobile application developer Toura, released their first mobile app last week.
The app, entitled “The Making of the King James Bible” is the first in a series designed to enable the Bodleian to share some of their greatest collections in new formats. It is being launched to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, and the summer exhibition, “Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible”.
Many documents and books relating to the King James Bible translation are being brought together for the first time, such as a copy of the infamous “Wicked Bible” of 1631, which contains a misprint in the seventh commandment which commanded readers to commit adultery, with most copies having been subsequently burned.
The app also includes commentary from the curators and fellow of St. Cross College Diarmaid MacCulloch, a leading authority on the history of the Church.
Whilst this is only the first app released by the Bodleian Libraries, it is part of a wider move to embrace emerging formats of distributing and displaying the Bodleian’s vast collection. The Gough map, the earliest surviving map of Great Britain, was recently released in a digital format for the first time by the Bodleian Map Library, as was reported on by Cherwell this week.
Andrew Teal, a fellow in Theology at Pembroke College, said, “I think all new ventures that make learning more interactive and less passive are good … there are already quite a variety of technophile resources (podcasts of lectures etc).”
“The Making of the King James Bible” has been made available for Apple and Android devices, for £0.69. The next app in the series is due to be released in autumn, and has been described as “a browsable collection of some of the Bodleian’s greatest treasures including the newly-acquired Jane Austen manuscript, ‘Magna Carta’, Shakespeare’s ‘First Folio’, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’.”
