Two great new tools to further education in rare books and manuscripts are now available online for all.

The first concerns Books of Hours, and is hosted by Harvard College Library, the joint work of professor of Art Jeffrey Hamburger and librarian of Houghton Library, William Stoneman. It assumes no prior knowledge of this genre, and especially helpfully, reviews the structure of these books, which I admit is something I’m something less than an expert on. Also, which fits in quite well with the next great tool, is a comparison tool based on the structure earlier described, so the student or researcher may see different examples of each from books in the Houghton library.

Similarly, comparison lies at the heart of the educational value of the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, a project supported by NEH and the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). It will one day feature all the quarto editions printed before 1642, but currently features only Hamlet. Even with this one play, one can see the amazing pedagogical and scholarly use. Opening, say, the 1603 British Library copy and comparing it with one Folger Library copy from 1611 in the main archive screen, is easy and revealing from the start. Bernardo and Francisco are absent as named characters in the first, though someone has helpfully inked in “now called Bernardo & Francisco,” which is evident in the 1611 copy, where they are introduced as “Enter Bernardo and Francisco, two Centinels.” What a wonderful tool for teaching bibliography and editing to graduate and undergraduate students of literature.