Hot on the heels of pope week, comes news of the first edition of the New Testament about to go online.  Well perhaps not the first edition, but the oldest surviving, complete edition (dating back to the 4th century AD). A website has been put up to eventually display the full digitised version of the Codex Sinaiticus with the first chunk going online in a few days time.

Meanwhile elsewhere, the Productivity Commission is looking at changing the rules for importing books from overseas. Currently there seems to be a month’s delay on International titles appearing locally. Needless to say some folk are looking forward to a relaxation of the rules and some are aghast. I know from my own experience that the price of books locally is way high. For example, one of the books that arrived from Amazon last week was “The Raven King“. It would have cost me about AUD$30 (including delivery from the US) for this hardcover edition, whereas to purchase it from my local bookshop, it would have cost twice that. Interestingly the catalogue record for the edition at Gleebooks says paperback but I can verify that it’s actually a hardcover.