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Of Peptides and Scribes: Applying Life Sciences to the Study of Manuscripts

This talk will offer an overview of the emerging field of biocodicology, or the study of books via the biological information stored in them. While ancient and medieval manuscripts have long been prized as repositories of textual, artistic, and historical information, humanists, scientists, and librarians are also increasingly aware of the potential of their significant stores of biological information. This includes genetic traces left through both human contact and faunal remains (e.g., parchment leaves, hide glue, leather bindings), proteins (e.g., collagen, egg white glaze), and microbiomes. This lecture will cover the history of the field and both the promises that it holds and the challenges faced as this area of study emerges.

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Ethiopic (Ge`ez ) Manuscripts: An Informational Event with Examples Drawn from Duke’s Collection

Korman Assembly Room Room 217, Perkins Library

Professor Byron will introduce her current project, highlight some of the Ethiopic manuscripts in the Rubenstein collection, and address the complex set of challenges associated with studying early Christian Ethiopian sources. Curator Armacost will be on hand to address the background of the collection and its broader history at Duke.

Organizational Strategies in the Digital Image Archive

In the research process, the acquisition stage can be overwhelming, especially when researchers need to capture vast amounts of digital images in a short period of time. What strategies can add structure to a digital image archive? What methods can make this archive searchable? How can an organized archive help scholars write a chapter of their next book or a lesson plan of their next course? In this workshop, participants will learn how to create an archive of visual materials for research using Tropy, an image management toolkit that allows users to organize images, record metadata about them, transcribe text from manuscripts or printed material, and export data for other uses. This workshop demonstrates how Tropy can be an integral part of your archival research workflows and explores the processes and organizational strategies that allow users to make the most of the software.