The database project was developed in partnership with two leading experts in the United States, Kevin Kiernan, from the University of Kentucky, and Paul Szarmach, from the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University. Professor Kiernan edited the electronic archive and supervised the making of a CD-ROM with the main electronic images. Brian Lang, chief executive of the British Library, explained on its website in 1998: "The Beowulf manuscript is a unique treasure and imposes on the Library a responsibility to scholars throughout the world. Digital photography offered for the first time the possibility of recording text concealed by early repairs, and a less expensive and safer way of recording readings under special light conditions. It also offers the prospect of using image enhancement technology to settle doubtful readings in the text. Network technology has facilitated direct collaboration with American scholars and makes it possible for scholars around the world to share in these discoveries. Curatorial and computing staff learned a great deal which will inform any future programmes of digitization and network service provision the Library may undertake, and our publishing department is considering the publication of an electronic scholarly edition of Beowulf. This work has not only advanced scholarship; it has also captured the imagination of a wider public, engaging people (through press reports and the availability over computer networks of selected images and text) in the appreciation of one of the primary artefacts of our shared cultural heritage." Other treasures of the British Library were available online as well: "Magna Carta", the first English constitutional text, signed in 1215, with the Great Seal of King John; the "Lindisfarne Gospels", dated 698; the "Diamond Sutra", dated 868, sometimes referred to as the world's earliest print book; the "Sforza Hours", dated 1490-1520, an outstanding Renaissance treasure; the "Codex Arundel", a notebook from Leonardo Da Vinci, in the late 15th or early 16th century; and the "Tyndale New Testament", as the first print version in English by Peter Schoeffer in Worms. New treasures followed. The digitized version of the Bible of Gutenberg was available online in November 2000. Gutenberg printed its Bible in 1454 or 1455 in Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48 copies still available in 2000, and three copies - two full ones and one partial one - at the British Library. The two full copies - a little different from each other - were digitized in March 2000 by Japanese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then processed to offer a full digital version on the web a few months later. 1999: LIBRARIANS GET DIGITAL = [Overview]