A New Age of Photography: ‘DIY Digitization’ in Manuscript Studies

Abstract

Since c. 2008 many special collections libraries have allowed researchers to take photographs of medieval manuscripts: this article calls such self-service photography ‘DIY digitization’. The article considers some possible effects of this digital tool for research on book history, especially on palaeography, comparing it in particular to the effects of institutionally-led digitization. ‘DIY digitization’ does assist with access to manuscripts, but less easily and with less open data than institutional digitization does. Instead, it allows the researcher’s intellectual agenda to guide the selection of what to photograph. The photographic process thereby becomes part of the process of analysis. Photography by the researcher is therefore limited by subjectivity but it also helps to highlight the role of subjective perspectives in scholarship. It can also balance a breadth or depth of perspective in ways different from institutional digitization. It could in theory foster increased textual scholarship but in practice has fostered attention to the materiality of the text.

Interpretation of Online Artworks of Digital Art Design in the New Media Environment

“…Usually, in order to seize the opportunity, the news reports in the context of new media are simple and direct, but with the increasing attention of users and the mining of relevant news elements [ 7 ]. Y. Xu et al said that the new aesthetics brought by the new media art based on digital technology and with digital image as the core has opened a new era of film and television art and image culture and put forward new challenges for the original art theory system and aesthetic system with classical art as the main interpretation object [ 8 ]. Wakelin Daniel Iyer G. et al believe that, at this stage, there are obviously problems that need to explored, thought of, or solved.…”

Original Varnish Recipes in Post-Byzantine Painting Manuals

“…Information pertaining to varnishes and the process of varnishing appears sporadically in some antiquity sources, yet detailed varnish recipes are mostly found in texts dating from the 8th c. AD onwards [3]. Research in relevant archival material has been very much facilitated during the last decades, as there is a growing tendency towards digitization of manuscripts and pertinent archival material; in addition, pre-existing manuscripts' reproductions (e.g., microfilms and photographs) are also digitized and stored in repositories [6,7]. Quite often, the relevant archives are made publicly available through the web, thus resulting in the creation of several open access online repositories, such as those of the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/, accessed: 3 August 2021), the Vatican Library (https://digi.vatlib.it/, accessed: 3 August 2021), and the National Library of Greece (https://www.nlg.gr/, accessed: 3 August 2021).…”