Call for Papers: Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age

Call for Papers: Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age

The reproduction of the European cultural heritage into digital
resources is on its way. Among the various activities undertaken in
this field, online catalogues of manuscrips have become an important
research tool: Manuscripta Medievalia, for example, is a well
established central catalogue in Germany. Important European
libraries like the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the British
Library or the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana have published their
catalogues online. Directories with regional focus like the
manuscript catalogue of Tuscany (CODEX) are seen alongside the
European integrative project ENRICH. At the same time, the
digitisation of the manuscripts themselves has gained momentum. What
impact has this new situation on palaeographic and codicologic
research?

Successful projects have shown that data that emerges from such
cataloguing and digitising activities can be processed and enriched
by digital technologies: there are algorithms to compare character
patterns and enable palaeographic analyses. Comprehensive
codicological data is available via electronic catalogues to allow
statistical research on the archaeology of manuscripts. Digital
editions embed images of their underlying manuscripts. Online
resources enable web-based teaching of palaeography in a way far
beyond the traditional facsimile collections.

The Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) calls for
contributions to an anthology on "Codicology and Palaeography in the
Digital Age" to be published in Summer 2009. The purpose of this
volume is threefold. Firstly, it aims at recording forward-looking
digital work with manuscripts. This involves state-of-the-art
technology as well as realistic ideas for future implementations.
Secondly, it examines the field from the users’ perspective: how can
codicological and palaeographic work benefit from digital resources
and technologies? Are there new results that had not been possible
before? Or is there at least a significant increase in efficiency
compared to traditional methodology? We are therefore particularly
encouraging contributions that describe research based on such
digital resources. Finally, an outlook on the future development of
the digital research on manuscripts will be given.

Possible topics for contributions can include but are not restricted to:

* reports on research based on digital resources
* Integration of and statistical research on data from
manuscript catalogues
* palaeographic databases (scripts, scribes, characters)
* codicological databases (e.g. watermarks, book covers)
* (semi-) automatic recognition of scripts and scribes
* digital tools for transcriptions
* visions and prototypes of other digital tools
* teaching palaeography

The editors are open to proposals beyond these suggestions that fit
into the outlined purpose of the volume. Contributions can be made
either in German, Italian, English or French. The launch of the
volume will be accompanied by an international symposium to which the
IDE wants to invite the authors of the four best contributions to
present their work.

Proposals of not more than 500 words shall be send by 30 November 2008 to:

Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing
c/o Malte Rehbein
Moore Insitute
National University of Ireland, Galway
malte.rehbein@nuigalway.ie

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The Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) is a
network of researchers working on the application of digital methods
on historical documents. Its members participate in important
international research activities. The IDE, established in 2006, sees
itself as a nucleus for IT technologies in the field of scholarly
editing and documentology, understanding a historical document as a
carrier for text as well as a physical object. To achieve this, IDE
members take an active part in ongoing discussions, contribute
reviews and research articles, organise conferences and workshops,
counsel trend-setting projects and teach academic junior scientists.

Website: http://www.i-d-e.de