Readings
Last updated
Last updated
No readings. Come prepared to meet your classmates, talk about yourself, and look at some medieval manuscripts.
This class is devoted to considering how and why you might want to develop an online presence as an individual, but also as heritage institution. We’ll dip out toes into the online world by signing up for an hcommons.org profile, preparing to write blog posts and beginning to Tweet.
Anonymous (@MedievalIndonesia), "My Twitter Account," "
Jesse Stommel, "Promoting Open Access Publications and Academic Projects"
Ricoy. M. C., & Feliz, T., "Twitter as a Learning Community in Higher Education." Educational Technology & Society, 19.1 (2016), 237–248. (posted on cuLearn)
Sarah Warner, "How to Destroy Special Collections with Social Media," (31 July 2015):
British Library, Medieval Manuscripts Blog,
Pearson, Erika. “All the World Wide Web’s a Stage: The Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks.” First Monday 14, no. 3 (February 25, 2009). .
In recent years, there have arisen so many platforms for hosting DH projects that it is difficult to know which to choose. We will be looking at how WordPress and Omeka function –the two main platforms we will be using this term- and how they differ (for better or worse) from their alternatives. Since our work largely focusses on being descriptive/ analytical, it is handcrafted, and our data is neither structured nor large, our work is not conducive to working with other platforms.
David R. Brake, "Are We All Online Content Creators Now? Web 2.0 and Digital Divides," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 19, Issue 3, 1 April 2014, Pages 591– 609,
Terras, M.M and Boyle E.A, "Digital media production and identity: Insights from a psychological perspective," E-Learning and Digital Media. Vol 12, Issue 2, pp. 128 – 146,
Esther Liberman Cuenca , Maryanne Kowaleski, "Omeka and Other Digital Platforms for Undergraduate Research Projects on the Middle Ages Authors"
Miriam Posner, t
Examples of Blogs to peruse:
Examples of Omeka Sites to peruse:
At the core of many DH projects is the belief that data wants to be free. But, most DH project require lots of labour and usually many people collaborating together (and using expertise/ tools developed in previous projects). Github is a platform built to allow collaboration on projects, but its ethos is grounded on the idea that users share their work and their experience. In this work, transparency about collaborative work (and the problems which arise) is key to moving forward. In this class we will talk about the issues of engaging in larger scale DH projects (i.e. more than one or two people) and will ask students to work some more with Github.
And try to make sense of what these githubs are doing:
This week marks a transition in the class away from our brief introduction to some digital tools, towards a more in-depth understanding of medieval manuscripts and how they are put together. “Writing Supports” is the term used to describe the material on which text is written. Our discussion, therefore, is to understand what people write on (paper, parchment, stone, wax, banana leaves etc.) and how that affects how texts are constructed.
Darnton, Robert. ‘“What Is the History of Books?” Revisited’. Modern Intellectual History 4, no. 3 (November 2007): 495–508.
Saenger, "Silent Reading and its impact on Late Medieval Reading" (on slack)
Videos:
Digitized Examples:
Paleography is the study of “old” ways of writing. Scripts go in and out of fashion, and thus how something is written allows us to date it with some certainty and often identify its origin. In this class, we will briefly explore the history of medieval Western European writing to get you thinking about distinctive features that help identify scripts of the folios we have in our collection.
IMS, chp. 2-3, p. 18-48, chp. 10, 135-178.
Daniel Wakelin, "Writing the Words," In The Production of Books in England 1350–1500 (available on slack).
Complete exercises here:
Reading medieval manuscripts is difficult for modern readers due to a complex use of abbreviations and codes (much like you yourself use).
IMS, chp. 6, p. 82-93.
IMS, chp. 4 and 5 p. 49-81.
Sandra Hindman and Ariane Bergeron-Foote, Binding and the Archeology of the Medieval and Renaissance Book (available on slack).
Medieval & Early Modern Manuscripts Bookbinding Terms, Materials, Methods, And Models (available on slack).
And try to understand the codicological description of Saint Cuthbert's Gospel (shelfmarkL "Add MS 89000"; i.e. the 89000 manuscript added to the general collection after its initial catalogue was created. It became part of the British Library collection only in 2012):
IMS, chp. 11-13; pp. 181-221.
Thomas Kelly, Books in the Medieval Liturgy (Online EdX course - videos total about one hour)
For reference:
IMS, chps 8 and 9; pp. 117-134.
Jeffrey Pomerantz, "Introduction," Metadata (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015): p. 1-18 (on slack)
Shailor - Introduction and Principles of Cataloguing Medieval Manuscripts (on slack)
Take a quick look at Ottawa in Conway and Fagin-Davis, Directory of Collections in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings (on slack);
Digitized Manuscript Project (with well developed prose description)
Working with Fragments:
Scott Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts (on slack)
No readings. During class time, students can meet with the professor one-on-one to get help with their final project.
No readings. Debriefing the term/ teleconference with Tuija Ainonen, of the British Library.
What is the difference between a manuscript and a digital version of it? This class welcomes students back and begins our focus on digitization in earnest. Our first question should be, what makes a digital project, digital? When we turn a manuscript into 1's and 0's, what do we do to it? What do we gain, or lose?
Jon Bath, Alyssa Arbuckle, Constance Crompton, Alex Christie, Ray Siemens, and the INKE Research Group, "Futures of the Book," in Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, 336-344 (on slack)
David McKitterick, Old Books, New Technologies The Representation, Conservation and Transformation of Books since 1700, chp. 1, "The past in pixels", p. 1-26 (on slack).
Example of a well-funded and successful digitization effort (links are to both sites of the same project). This project will be object of continuing discussion this term.
Scanning or photographing manuscripts is one thing, but manuscripts can be represented or reproduced digitally in a myriad of ways. This class is intended as a brainstorming session for potential exhibitions people might want to develop and to explore the idea of the digital humanities as a gateway into diverse intellectual and creative interactions with texts. Our goal in class is to come up with a set of criteria of what makes for good DH project, related of course, to medieval manuscript studies...
Think pieces:
Databases
A searchable database of current digital projects
Case studies:
How to capture medieval manuscripts? This class asks students to consider how people go about imaging, reproducing and creating facsimiles (both physical and digital) of medieval manuscripts.
For more narrative/visual depictions of the digitization process, please see the following:
On Omeka, we’ve already been using IIIF Images. This class we will look at how we can use IIIF to present images, but also how IIIF and its linked software allows scholars to productively study/ interact with medieval manuscripts.
What is IIIF and who uses it?
Reviews
Examples of IIIF Implementation
The development of annotations offered by Hypothes.is and Mirador allows an intellectual engagement/ process not usually visible, but very helpful in the creation of knowledge. Too many annotations or unhelpful annotations, however, have the potential to negatively impact a project. We will explore the questions of how to encourage productive collaboration and how much access you want to make to the general public for your online material.
For Reference:
What are the best practices for creating online exhibitions of archival/ medieval material? How does the digital environment offer new ways of exhibiting material? What are the strengths and weaknesses of online exhibits?
Why Create an Exhibit? Understanding what you learn by working together:
In this class we will be looking at the guidelines for encoding medieval manuscripts developed by the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative). Shawn Hawkins (College of the Humanities) will be coming to talk to us about his ongoing collaboration to develop a digital edition of a fifteenth-century commentary on the Roman poet Catullus.
In this class, we will consider how to foreground accessibility in developing online exhibitions. Also we will be considering the issue of dead sites – what happens to your site after you stop maintaining it and how to ensure the information you have work so hard on does not disappear into the ether…
Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop, "TRAVERSALS: A Method of Preservation for Born-Digital Texts," in Routledge Companion to Media Studies and the Digital Humanities, 351-361.
Elizabeth Ellcessor, "A Glitch in the Tower: Academia, Disability, and Digital Humanities" in Routledge Companion to Media Studies and the Digital Humanities
Optional:
No readings. During class time for these two weeks, students will meet with the professor one-on-one to get help with their final project.
No readings. During class time for these two weeks, students will meet with the professor one-on-one to get help with their final project.
No readings. During class time for these two weeks, students will meet make formal 20 minute presentations of their work to the class.
No readings. During class time for these two weeks, students will meet make formal 20 minute presentations of their work to the class.
No readings. Debriefing the term.
W. Caleb McDaniel, "Open Notebook History"
Robert McMillan, "The Meta-Story: How Wired Published its Github Story on Github" (02.24.12) . Also a few more Wired articles on Github: and .
Kris Shaffer, "Push, Pull, Fork: GitHub for Academics" (May, 2013)
Alexey Zagalsky, Joseph Feliciano, Margaret-Anne Storey, Yiyun Zhao, Weiliang Wang, "The Emergence of GitHub as a Collaborative Platform for Education" .
Ian Milligan, "Why Canada's Open Data Initiative Matters to Historians," and .
vs.
vs.
Last minute addition for future reading (completely optional): . In particular:
; open-access, . [A reflection on a classic essay: ‘What Is the History of Books?’ Dædalus 111, no. 3 (1982): 65–83. .]
.
"Parchment," from , authored by the Book and Paper Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Shady Characters, ""
"Why Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Found in a Saint’s Coffin,"
There are lots of videos online about paper and parchment making. Check out this one about . The British Library's Medieval England and France, 700-1200 online exhibition has a number of about the making of quills, ink, pigments, vellum and more.
Generally for a good introduction to manuscripts, read the themed articles of the Medieval England and France exhibit on "making ".
St. Cuthbert's Gospel:
Harley MS 3244,
Fragments of birch bark manuscript in Kharoṣṭi,
Carbonized scroll from Herculaneum, introduction here and imaging project discussed here:
Book of wax tablets,
Signed terracotta roof tiles:
Sarah Bond has a blog post about teaching Classical Epigraphy (study of inscriptions). Read through her comments and look at the sketchfab examples she provides.
Your starting point should be a blog post by Yvonne Seale (follow her on Twitter) entitled, "". It lists loads of good resources, including , self-described as intended for "Unpuzzling difficult Latin readings in medieval manuscripts" (i.e. gives you most likely potential readings from the letters you can read).
Erik Kwakkel, "Biting, Kissing and the Treatment of Feet: The Transitional Script of the Long Twelfth Century," in __(Open Access book).
And codicologists in action: see how to collaborate in Lisa Fagin Davis blog post: and accompanying twitter thread:
Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, "". Start by reading their and transcription and then the rest of the transcription "Basics" section. Then read the historical overviews of , and , which will be the main types you will encounter.
(optional, in French) Conseils en paléographie,
More , read about emojiis, and and
Adriano Capelli's now quite old text on Abbreviations remains the reference work of record. Luckily it has been semi-translated, updated and made more accessible. Read the intro to Capelli laying out a theory of medieval abbreviation, translated into English .
Use Capelli on a smart phone (unfortunately the interface is only in French or German at this point). The searchable version for a browser on a computer is . A digitized copy of the print version can be read on .
On the Ad fontes website, attempt to transcribe written in Gothica textualis. Unlike your folio, if you click the "show transcription" box at the bottom of the page, whenever you hover the cursor over the word you are deciphering, it will show you the answer (I suggest this as a first stage to lessen the initial frustration of decipering and unpacking medieval writing).
for Tironian notes by Martin Hellman
A gentle Introduction to by Dr James Freeman, Cambridge University Library.
Erik Kwakkel, "The Architecture of the Medieval Page,"
To get a sense of how the printed page needs multiple orientations on a single side before being cut into folios, check out from the Firestone Library at Princeton. can be printed out, as can . Put the two together and you have a signature/ quire.
look at the catalogue here:
look at the manuscript here:
Alternate catalogue description:
Search for other manuscripts at the British Library here:
Barbara Swanson, Jennifer Bain, and Debra Lacoste, (supporting documentation for ) 2014.
Read a description of what the Cantus database seeks to do. Debra LaCoste, "The Cantus Database: Mining for Medieval Chant Traditions"
Using liturgical features to localize text: posted by Lisa Fagin Davis, linking to this document
Gentle introduction to medieval liturgical books and liturgy from Thomas Kelly's :
Introduction to the Medieval Liturgy
The Early Meaning of the Word Liturgy
The Proper of the Saints
Liturgical Space
The Sacramentary
The Epistle
The Gospel
The Gradual
The Missel - part 1
The Missel - part 2
The Noyon Missal
Discussing The Daily Office
Lectionary and Sermons
Collectar and Hymnary
The Psalter
The Antiphoner - part I
The Antiphoner - part II
The Antiphoner - part III
The Breviary - part I
The Breviary - part II
Musical Notation - part I
Musical Notation - part II
Musical Notation - part III
Introduction to Performing the Liturgy
Performing the Liturgy
Thomas Kelly, Identifying medieval liturgical manuscripts: A rough guide (On slack and available here:
Andrew Hughes, , (Toronto: PIMS, 1996).
Andrew Hughes, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982).
A key reference work is the , by Gregory A. Pass put together for the Bibliographic Standards Committee: Rare Books and Manuscripts Section.
Suarez, Michael F. ‘Book History from Descriptive Bibliographies’. In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, edited by Leslie Howsam, 199–218. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. .
A of Manuscripts in the Schoenberg Collection (UPenn)
Eric Johnson and Scott Gwara.
The Schoenberg Database can be consulted online .
The Conway and Fagin-Davis work is a supplement to the DeRicci census – an excellent description of whose process of development is described in Nigel Ramsay's article "Towards a Universal Catalogue of Early Manuscripts: Seymour de Ricci’s Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada." In 1.1.
Look at the Codex Gigas itself, but pay more attention to the codicological description offered (palaeography, illustration....). Start here:
Lost Manuscripts: pilot project to build catalogue for fragments. , ,
: another pilot project. ,
First issue of the . Read one article to see how scholars use fragments as part of a larger historical question.
Ted Underwood, "Seven ways humanists are using computers to understand texts," Blog post 2015,
Patrick Sahle, “What is a Scholarly Digital Edition?” in Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices - Open Book Publishers,” accessed December 30, 2018, (on slack)
Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen, "A Picture of a Picture of a Flower: On the Limitation of Working with Digitized Images", Blog Entry (November 25, 2018)
(the manuscripts)
(the exhibitions)
Evyn C. Kropf, "" In Manuscript Studies 1.1
Andrew Prescott, Lorna Hughes, "Why do we Digitize?"
Appleford, Simon, and Jennifer Guiliano. “Best Practice Principles Of Designing Your First Project.” DevDH.org, 2013. (recorded talk with powerpoint)
Study the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) recommendations for developing digital projects:
curated by the Medieval Academy of America.
Project to digitize palaeographical analysis.
Sketchfab 3D models, repository, (Museum of the Middle Ages).
A useful schematic of the digitization workflow via
The Department of Canadian Heritage has developed a to help Canadian heritage institutions with the process of digitization.
Please take a look at the to understand imaging terminology.
but spend most of your time and focus on completing the . Keep in mind that images of all the folios have been photographed, and are already available through a IIIF server online. The exercises are useful tools for your to reflect on the process outlined, but not necessary to complete for our purpose.
Read about the National Library of Scotland's ongoing digitization effort. Their team has put together this description of all the tasks they must complete in this process: or .
on digitization at UPenn (video not available in Canada! ARGHHH!)
A "" to Penn Library's MS Codex 236
An interview with Christina Duffy (British Library) on
about the Multi-spectral imaging "Lazarus Project"
View at the University of Tokyo.
Photos of Digitization rig at
A short "un-digitization" video at the .
Photos of digitizing Big Items at the
Quick overview of image file types .
(Optional) The debate about image standards continues. Here is one detailed evaluating using RAW image files as an archival standard. Michael Bennett and Barry Wheeler, "Raw as Archival Still Image Format: A Consideration"
Watch this by Ben Albritton (Stanford) about IIIF and medieval manuscripts.
Watch this video (a IIIF compliant viewer)
Or this .
Check out their (also ) and see participating institutional members of the (i.e. what libraries and museums use IIIF)
For an introduction to IIIF, see their training manual. Read this . Reads parts 2.2-2.4, so that you understand the difference between an Image API and a Presentation API. This is a 5-day training session - feel free to make your way through the, at times, very detailed exercises, but know we will only be asking you to interact with images, not figure out how to present and serve them...
Poster: Lisa McAuley, “Benefits of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Featuring Medieval Palimpsest Manuscripts,” Digital Initiatives Symposium, May 2, 2017, which draws on work being done for
William Ying and James Shulman, " 'Bottled or Tap?' (IIIF) into Shared Shelf and Artstor"
Sarah Ann Long, “Review: International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF); Gallica; e-Codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 71, no. 2 (August 1, 2018): 561–72, .
Bibliotheca Vaticana (still in development, with preliminary scaffolding of the future website)
(these are slides to accompany a talk about the project)
for IIIF images via Biblisimma
. This schematic should help you understand how web annotations work. Progress through the steps by clicking on the blue arrow in the top right corner.
Using IIIF Annotations and Crowdsourcing.
Joris van Zundert, "On Not Writing a Review about Mirador: Mirador, IIIF, and the Epistemological Gains of Distributed Digital Scholarly Resources." .
A helpful tutorial on Mirador has been . Halfway through is a detailed description of how to annotate, export and save annotations.
. This site contains detailed technical documents on how to implement annotations online.
. Project Mirador Github. How to set up your Project Mirador-enabled site to store annotations.
Kathy Fox, .
's Jeffrey deWitt's Petrus Plaoul. Commentarius in libros Sententiarum: Editiones electronicas. To see what this original work evolved into after growing and , peruse his site.
Barbara Rockenbach, "Archives, Undergraduates, and Inquiry-Based Learning: Case Studies from Yale University Library" .
Elizabeth Belanger, "Public History and Liberal Learning: Making the Case for the Undergraduate Practicum Experience," , Vol. 34 No. 4, Fall 2012; (pp. 30-51).
For a sense of what TEI is about take a look at Lou Burnard's short Open Edition . All in, this text runs to 114 pages, so read from the "Introduction" until the end of "Varieties of textual structure". Please read the whole thing if you get intrigued.
Antiphonary folio located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, catalogued on the .
sheet for the above Antiphonary folio.
Andrew Dunning (UToronto) has put together for authoring digital critical editions, including LaTex, Classical Text Editor and TEI.
To work with TEI, e also has written out a , including who to install Atom on your computer (which you likely have already).
And he has produced this VERY useful ms in TEI. This is the most important reading to get through carefully.
For a medieval specific TEI guidelines, please take a look at the Digital Latin Library's or as a repository on .
To learn how to take your first independent steps into the world of TEI encoding, take a look at
In class and for homework, you can begin your first TEI edition by following this .
Last ditch conservation strategy:
Creative Commons vs. GNU Information Licence: Read selection from Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, Second Edition:
George Williams, "Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities" .
Malinda Thiede, "Preservation In Practice: A Survey Of New York City Digital Humanities Researchers"
Government of Ontario, How to make new or significantly updated websites accessible for people with disabilities.
