A catalogue of Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries

About us

The Collections

We have used the phrase "Georgian manuscripts" to describe manuscripts and archival materials in Georgian but also manuscripts and archival materials (primarily in English) about Georgia.

The collection holds manuscripts and archival materials from all subject areas from the 7th to the 20th century CE.

The nucleus of the Bodleian Library's rich holdings of Georgian books and manuscripts is the Wardrop Collection, formed by Sir Oliver Wardrop, the first British Chief Commissioner of the Transcaucasus, and his sister Marjory Wardrop. After Marjory's early death in 1909, the Marjory Wardrop Fund was founded for the encouragement of Georgian studies and from 1910, through this fund, the Bodleian became the beneficiary of all Marjory Wardrop's papers, books and manuscripts. They were supplemented by further donations from Sir Oliver until his death in 1948 and two more recent donations from Sir Oliver's descendants in 2017 and 2018.

Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries is a free online catalogue for manuscript and archival descriptions. It is not a digital library but links are provided if digital copies exist on line. Printed books in Georgian and about Georgia are in the Bodleian's SOLO online catalogue.

History & Methodology

Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries has evolved from the printed source Catalogue of the Wardrop collection and of other Georgian books and manuscripts in the Bodleian Library by David Barrett (Oxford University Press, 1973). It is based on an open source TEI/XML metadata standard which incorporates established library standards for description (Name Authority, LC Transliteration and Subject Headings).

A large number of entries in Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries were created using "legacy data", the intellectual content of predated or historic catalogues, hand-lists and annotated card catalogues. Some records may however, be the result of research carried out by contemporary librarians and academics through consultation of the physical work. Therefore, the level of codicological (physical descriptions of manuscripts) and bibliographic (content and references) detail varies and is changing over time as research proceeds.

Reuse

All the TEI files are available to download from our repository on GitHub.

Contact us

We welcome contributions by holding institutions, scholars or projects creating manuscript descriptions to help us enrich the quality of the records in Georgian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries.

For feedback, corrections and additions to individual catalogue entries, requests for digital copies, or general queries, please use the Contact us link at the very bottom of every page.