Kodikologie und Paläographie im digitalen Zeitalter 2 / Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age 2, eds. Franz Fischer, Christiane Fritze, and Georg Vogeler, in collaboration with Berhard Assmann, Malte Rehbein, and Patrick Sahle, Schriften des Instituts für Dokumentologie und Editorik 3, Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2010. (ISBN 978-3-8423-5032-8, €58 at bookstores, electronic version [pdf] free at http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/4337/)

Abstract

Readers of DM will not need reminding that, in recent years, we have seen impressive digitisation enterprises focusing on manuscripts, featuring mass-digitisation approaches (e.g. the manuscripts of the Diocesan and Cathedral Library in Cologne, http://www.ceec.uni-koeln.de), digital editions (e.g. Codex Sinaiticus, http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/); and the application of cutting-edge technologies to recover unreadable text and investigate material aspects (e.g. the Archimedes Palimpsest Project, http://archimedespalimpsest.org/). Such enterprises have generated a great deal of public and scholarly interest, and it should certainly not be seen as a mere coincidence that research into the history, materials, and texts of Ancient and Mediaeval manuscripts are currently experiencing a revival as well, given the increased accessibility of manuscripts via their digital surrogates and the new possibilities opened up by the aforementioned digitisation enterprises. Recent manuscript studies, particularly when informed by digital approaches, seem to make a good case for the widely held view among Digital Humanists that digitisation and digital research not only add to traditional approaches but also initiate a qualitative transformation of an entire field of research. Hence the first English sentence at the publisher’s website introducing the volume to be reviewed here: Digital technology changes the way scholars work with manuscripts (http://www.i-d-e.de/schriften/3-kpdz2).

Keywords

• digital codicology
• digital palaeography