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Summer 2026 Session 3
Date: Tuesday May 5, 2026 - 16:30–18:00 BST = 17:30–19:00 CEST
Convenors: Hannah Busch (University of Cologne)
Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/live/MHMYAW-oZlc?si=WS9wYShUuogEPwmh
Slides: Slides session 3
This session explores the making of a digital scholarly edition from a materiality focused perspective. In the first part of the session, we explore technologies and workflows for a sustainable digitisation of historic handwritten objects. How are manuscripts digitised? And who is responsible for digitisation? What is required to transform images into a digital facsimile of a book or a digital edition? Which imaging techniques are available and what kind of post-processing is required? How are metadata encoded to enable the findability and (re-)usability of the digitised object? During the second part of the session, we will explore some new research opportunities that have become possible through digitisation. This includes technologies like automatic text recognition (HTR/OCR), approaches to digital codicology and palaeography. The session will be concluded with a discussion of exemplary virtual libraries, digital editions and novel approaches in manuscript research (see texts and lists of resources below).
- David J. Birnbaum et al., ‘The Digital Middle Ages: An Introduction’, Speculum 92, no. S1 (2017): S1–38, https://doi.org/10.1086/694236.
- Suzette van Haaren, “Introduction”, in: The Digital Medieval Manuscript: Material Approaches to Digital Codicology (Brill, 2025).
- Bridget Whearty, Digital Codicology. Medieval Books and Modern Labor, Stanford Text Technologies 21 (Stanford University Press, 2022), https://doi-org.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl/10.1515/9781503634190. (not open access)
- Ramona Fritschi, ‘E-Codices - Virtual Library of Switzerland: Great Achievements and Even Greater Challenges to Come’, Digital Philology 6, no. 2 (2017): 244–56.
- Arianna Ciula, ‘Digital Palaeography: What Is Digital about It?’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32, no. suppl_2 (2017): ii89–105, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqx042.
- e-codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland: https://e-codices.ch/en
- eCodicesNL: the virtual reading room for digitised medieval manuscripts in Dutch collections, https://ecodices.nl/
- The Archimedes Palimpsest Project: https://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/
- Welscher Gast Digital, UB Heidelberg: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/wgd/
- Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library A publication of St. Catherine's Monastery of the Sinai, Egypt
- Codices Palatini graeci
- Cologne Papyrus Collection (Translation)
- Marginal Scholarship: The Practice of Learning in the Early Middle Ages
- The prayer book of Mary of Guelders
- The Digital Vercelli Book
- Virtual Mappa. Digital Editions of Medieval Maps of the World
- Lazarus Project (MSI): https://lazarusprojectimaging.com/
- Pick one of the projects listed above in the section „Resources“, or any other virtual manuscript library or digital edition that includes digital facsimiles of handwritten objects.
- Answer the following questions:
- Which field of study is the project from?
- What types of “objects” does it deal with?
- What is the target audience?
- What kinds of data does it provide?
- Which features does the user interface have?
- What would you like to see that is missing?