Ultraviolet image The Archimedes Palimpsest revealing Archimedes’s “On Spiral Lines”, detail of diagram, Public Domain. ?

Sandars Lecture One: The medieval manuscript and its digital Image (collections)

Mon 11 March 2019

McCrum Lecture Theatre

About the lecture

Digital Images are so good at revealing information about medieval manuscripts that scholars use them all the time. And yet scholars know nothing about most digital images. It is very difficult for to find information about a digital image of a medieval manuscript, other than the shelfmark of manuscript that it represents. This is remarkable for a discipline that prides itself on the careful examination of sources, and it threatens the integrity of scholarship on the medieval book. The personal and institutional presentation of digital images affects not only what scholars can know about the digital images that they use, but also the types of scholarship that they can undertake with them. Through examples such as the Archimedes Palimpsest and the medieval manuscripts of Philadelphia, this lecture reexamines the presentation of digital collections on the web.

About the series

Digital reproductions are indispensable to the study and publication of the medieval book in the twenty-first century. These lectures explore the relationship between manuscript pages and digital images, and between physical collections and digital ones. They examine the importance of interfaces in shaping audience and inquiry, and the potential of tools to aid in the archaeology of the medieval book. The lectures argue that rather than attempting to recreate the medieval book in a virtual environment, institutions would better serve the field by presenting datasets that can be mined by users, taking advantage of the user’s skills, knowledge and imagination to embed institutional collections in twenty-first century cultural life.

Each of the three Sandars Lectures take place 5-6pm at the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College (the lecture theatre is located off Bene't Street behind The Eagle pub). The final lecture will be followed by a drinks reception. Lectures are free, and seats will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

About the speaker

The Reader for the 2018-19 series of Sandars Lectures is Dr William Noel, Director of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscripts Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

About the Sandars Readership in Bibliography

Hosted by Cambridge University Library, the Sandars Readership in Bibliography is one of the most prestigious honorary posts to which book historians, librarians and researchers can be appointed to deliver a series of lectures on their chosen subject.

Cost: Free