Catching the Changes

Under the smooth shiny hood of the Vatican Library's digital manuscripts portal, which currently has 10,420 items online to read, it's now possible for the scholar to distinguish two categories of URLs to share with friends. The first comprises links to full-color scans of manuscripts like the 94 items below, the latest digitization release, on January 26, 2017.

1. Borg.arm.61
2. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.159
3. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.160
4. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.161
5. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.162
6. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.163
7. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.165
8. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.166
9. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.167
10. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXIX.fasc.168
11. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.130
12. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.131
13. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.132
14. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.133
15. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.134
16. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.135
17. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.136
18. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.137
19. Pal.lat.81
20. Pal.lat.87
21. Pal.lat.92
22. Pal.lat.96
23. Pal.lat.99
24. Pal.lat.129
25. Pal.lat.132
26. Pal.lat.133
27. Pal.lat.134
28. Pal.lat.136
29. Pal.lat.137
30. Pal.lat.138
31. Pal.lat.139
32. Pal.lat.141
33. Pal.lat.144
34. Pal.lat.146
35. Pal.lat.147
36. Pal.lat.151
37. Pal.lat.152
38. Pal.lat.155
39. Pal.lat.156
40. Pal.lat.157
41. Pal.lat.158
42. Pal.lat.161
43. Pal.lat.163
44. Pal.lat.164
45. Pal.lat.166
46. Pal.lat.168
47. Pal.lat.237
48. Pal.lat.240
49. Pal.lat.244
50. Pal.lat.247
51. Pal.lat.248
52. Pal.lat.250
53. Pal.lat.252
54. Pal.lat.254
55. Pal.lat.256
56. Pal.lat.257
57. Pal.lat.260
58. Pal.lat.267
59. Pal.lat.268
60. Pal.lat.269
61. Pal.lat.271
62. Pal.lat.275
63. Pal.lat.279
64. Pal.lat.280
65. Pal.lat.384
66. Pal.lat.385
67. Pal.lat.389
68. Pal.lat.391
69. Pal.lat.392
70. Pal.lat.393
71. Pal.lat.394
72. Pal.lat.525.pt.1
73. Pal.lat.525.pt.2
74. Pal.lat.599
75. Pal.lat.1004
76. Pal.lat.1005
77. Reg.lat.1105, Tractatus de Medicina. Written in ordinary 12th-century minuscule. Folios 68-76 are palimpsest; the lower script (part of a 10th-century missal) is Beneventan, according to Lowe.
78. Urb.lat.1454
79. Urb.lat.1469
80. Urb.lat.1490
81. Urb.lat.1604
82. Urb.lat.1606
83. Urb.lat.1691
84. Urb.lat.1716
85. Urb.lat.1718
86. Urb.lat.1722
87. Urb.lat.1724
88. Urb.lat.1725
89. Urb.lat.1726
90. Urb.lat.1727
91. Urb.lat.1729
92. Vat.lat.999
93. Vat.lat.1106
94. Vat.lat.1221

The second category, very likely kept on a different server, comprises digital versions of old microfilms, mostly black and white but a few in color, which are essentially the same as those made available in recent years on CD-ROM by the Vatican photographic workshop at 50 euros and upwards apiece. The URLS, marked "low quality", are permanent links, which I am guessing will remain valid when these films are ultimately replaced by proper scans.

Keeping track of all this cannot be done without help from software. I use an extension, Distill, available for the Chrome and Firefox browsers.

One of its benefits is that it can be programmed to only monitor the parts of the index pages that matter. For each collection, I create a monitor that ignores the page decoration and thumbnail images and only extracts the the plain shelfmarks from the page as served:
//body[@class='script-active']/div[@class='main']/div[contains(@class,'fluid')]/div[@class='shadow-content']//div//ul[@class='loaded']/li//p

I am experimenting with a second monitor that drills down through the DOM tree to the words "low quality" to detect when that flag disappears (after a high-quality scan replaces a microfilm):
"//body[@class='script-active']/div[@class='main']/div[contains(@class,'fluid')]/div[@class='shadow-content']//div//ul[@class='loaded']/li//figure/div/span"

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 96. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.