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  1. How can I find out when new content is made available?
  2. How do I link to a specific page within a book?
  3. How do I change page while seeing as much of the manuscript as possible?
  4. How do I share a book on Facebook, Twitter, etc.?
  5. What technologies are behind the Cambridge Digital Library?
  6. What kind of standards do you use for data?
  7. Will you be offering whole pdfs of the manuscripts to download (for e-readers for example)?
  8. Why can't I see all books in Cambridge University Library online?
  9. What types of searches do you support?
  10. How are cookies are used on this site?

How can I find out when new content is made available?

Subscribe to our mailing list by sending an email to lib-cudl-news@lists.cam.ac.uk and we will do our best to keep you informed of updates.

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

Our website URLs have the format:

http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/[item id]/[image number]

So http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03996/5 links to image 5 in item MS-ADD-03996 (The Trinity College Notebook).

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 'Download or Share'. Under the Share section on 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 the Cambridge Digital Library?

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) and Goobi for digitising and indexing the data. The website was created by the digital library team at Cambridge University Library and is written in Java. You can find out more by contacting the Digital Library Team (see our Contributors Page for details on how to do this).

We are currently working on implementing the IIIF technology to expand your experience using Cambridge Digital Library. If you want to know more about IIIF and what we’re working on, please see our Dynamic digital library – a IIIF scoping project article.

What kind of standards do you use for data?

Our data is primarily in METS, MODS and TEI formats. We are planning to provide our data for others to download and use. Please let us know what formats/APIs would be most useful to you.

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, however this may result in very large files, so may not be suitable for all books.

Why can't I see all books in Cambridge University Library online?

We are just starting to build our online collection, so we only have a few works online at the moment. You may be able to find what you are looking for at the eresources@cambridge website.

What types of searches do you support?

Searching for newton Searches the metadata for 'newton'
Searching for isaac newton Searches for 'isaac' AND 'newton'
Searching for "isaac newton" Searches for the phrase 'isaac newton'
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 the Cambridge Digital Library website, to store your preferences and to monitor usage statistics, so we can improve performance.

1. Essential Cookies

These cookies are essential for the running of our website. Without the use of these cookies parts of our website would not function.

2. Analytical Performance Cookies

We use these types of cookies to monitor our websites performance and how different people use our website. These cookies provide us with information that helps us provide a better user experience and also to identify any areas that may need maintenance.

3. Functional Cookies

Functional cookies are used to remember your preferences on our website, such as which page you were on in a multiple page collection, or which messages you may have seen or not seen.

4. Embedded content

In our presentation of documents, we sometimes embed photos and video content from other websites such as YouTube. As a result, when you visit a page containing such content, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. Cambridge Digital Library does not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party's website for more information.

If you want to block or restrict cookies which are set on your device then you can do this by changing your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.

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