IT and Libraries of the World: Library of University of British Columbia digitized William Shakespeare’s First Folio of 1623

UBC Library (University of British Columbia, Canada, Vancouver) has made its first edition of William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies openly accessible to the public by publishing a digitized version of the volume online through Open Collections. The process to digitize the First Folio took more than a year to facilitate due to the Folio’s age and fragility.

Published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, the First Folio includes 36 of Shakespeare's 38 famous plays. Texts edited by Shakespeare's close friends, fellow writers and actors are considered the most authoritative of all early editions.

The digitization of the Folio represents a major milestone in UBC’s digital media plan for the volume and aligns with a mandate to ensure digital access to this rare cultural treasure. “Given the widespread interest in Shakespeare and the First Folio, we wanted to make a beautiful, high-resolution digital version of our copy available for instruction, research, and pure personal enjoyment to people not just here at UBC, but across the globe,” says Chelsea Shriver, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian at UBC Library.