Manchester Digital Collections

Help: FAQ

  1. How do I link to a specific page within a book?
  2. How do I change page while seeing as much of the manuscript as possible?
  3. How do I share a book on Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
  4. What technologies are behind Manchester Digital Collections?
  5. Will you be offering whole pdfs of the manuscripts to download (for e-readers for example)?
  6. Why can't I see all the cultural collections of the University online?
  7. What type of searches do you support?
  8. How are cookies are used on this site?

How do I link to a specific page within a book?

Our website URLs have the format:

https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/[item id]/[image number]

So https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/PR-INCU-18313/19 links to image 19 in item PR-INCU-18313 (Petrarch, Canzoniere e Trionfi, 1482).

How do I change page while seeing as much of the manuscript as possible?

The right panel, which shows some information about the item can be collapsed by clicking on the arrow icon in the far right of the screen. This will allow you to view more of the image while you can still page forward and backwards through the book. There is also a button within the viewer that allows you to expand it to cover the full screen.

How do I share a book on Facebook, Twitter, etc.?

When you are looking at an item, on the right hand panel select ‘View more options’ then ‘Share’. Within this tab are there are icons which will let you share the page on Facebook, Twitter and a number of other social media sites.

What technologies are behind Manchester Digital Collections?

We aim to use primarily open source technologies, and to avoid the use of plugins to make the site accessible to as many people as possible. For the website we use a collection of JavaScript libraries including OpenSeadragon for the zoomable images, Bootstrap and JQuery. Behind the scenes we use the eXtensible Text Framework (XTF) for indexing the data.

Will you be offering whole pdfs of the manuscripts to download (for e-readers for example)?

This is something which we would like to do but is not available currently.

Why can't I see all the cultural collections of the University online?

The University of Manchester is the custodian of millions of printed works, archives, manuscripts, photographs, works of art and museum objects. We are just starting to build our online collections, and only a small percentage is online at the moment. If there is something you think we should digitise, please contact us.

What type of searches do you support?

Searching for petrarca Searches the metadata for 'petrarca'
Searching for francesco petrarca Searches for 'francesco' AND 'petrarca'
Searching for "francesco petrarca" Searches for the phrase 'francesco petrarca'
The characters ? and * can be used as wildcards in your search.
Use ? to represent one unknown character and * to represent any number of unknown characters.

Try searching our collections.

How are cookies are used on this site?

Cookies are used to provide the essential functionality provided by Manchester Digital Collections, to store your preferences and to monitor usage statistics, so we can improve performance. Full details can be found at https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/privacy-information/data-protection/website-privacy-notice/#cookies.

Do you have any other questions? Please contact us using the Feedback form