Vatican Library goes hi-tech with £7.5m refit
The Vatican Library is to reopen to scholars after a three year, £7.5 million renovation, with 21st century technology enlisted to safeguard books and manuscripts dating back nearly 2,000 years.
Each one of the library's 70,000 books, which are stored in a bombproof bunker, has been fitted with a computer chip capable of emitting radio signals in order to prevent loss and theft.
The undertaking was in part motivated by an attempted theft by an American art history professor, who smuggled pages torn from a 14th century manuscript that once belonged to Petrarch.
The electronic chips are also designed to ensure that each priceless document remains in its proper place in the vast repository beneath the Vatican....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Each one of the library's 70,000 books, which are stored in a bombproof bunker, has been fitted with a computer chip capable of emitting radio signals in order to prevent loss and theft.
The undertaking was in part motivated by an attempted theft by an American art history professor, who smuggled pages torn from a 14th century manuscript that once belonged to Petrarch.
The electronic chips are also designed to ensure that each priceless document remains in its proper place in the vast repository beneath the Vatican....