Folks-- This from a 1992 post. I remembered that John Benton was involved with the JPL in some pretty sophisticated work on difficult-to-read manuscripts. FYI. -Raymond CORMIER
Manuscripts From: Walter Henry <whenry> Date: Friday, June 5, 1992 The following exchange took place recently in MEDTEXTL and is reproduced here without the knowledge or consent of the authors.
Date: Sun, 17 May 1992 20:52:34 CST Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: James Marchand <marchand [at] UX1__CSO__UIUC__EDU> Subject: Invasive techniques We discussed at length once before the use of invasive techniques in deciphering manuscripts. I picked up a book at K'zoo based mostly on the title and one of the articles: Dechiffrer les ecritures effacees, ed. Lucie Fossier et Jean Irigoin. Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Paris, 1990. When I mention that there are still people out there who are spilling chemicals on manuscripts, I am usually greeted with disbelief. I just mention one of the articles: "La revelation chimique des encre palies," by Francoise Flieder. I recently received a request by Octavio Paz for help in deciphering a faded manuscript by a deceased Mexican poet. The manuscript had been carried around in his pocket, was written in pencil, and had been faded out; a perfect candidate for mono- chromatic light, say, UV or infra-red or both, and enhancement. Alas, it had already been treated with chemicals. Many of our Gothic manuscripts, struck by "die wildangewandte Gallapfeltinktur Angelo Mais", are illegible forever, as is for the most part the Auxentius manuscript. We ought to put a stop to the use of invasive techniques and intrusive measures in dealing with manuscripts, and this includes using the wrong kind of ultra- violet lights. Jim Marchand
Date: Sun, 17 May 1992 22:52:58 EST Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: Kevin Kiernan <ENG102 [at] UKCC__UKY__EDU> Subject: Re: Invasive techniques Jim, Does the Fossier and Irigoin collection include "The Electronic Subtraction of the Superior Writing of a Palimpsest," by the late John Benton? Kevin Kiernan, eng102 [at] ukcc__uky__edu
Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 06:09:41 CDT Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: John Dagenais <dagenais [at] CASBAH__ACNS__NWU__EDU> Subject: Re: Invasive techniques Jim, Maybe this would be a good moment to bring some of us (i.e., me) up to speed on the alternatives to invasive techniques available now and in the near future. I know that various image processing, computer enhancing techniques are out there, but I don't really know what they will do for the average reader of manuscripts at this point. Are they being used at all now, or are they still on our wish list? Thanks, John Dagenais Dept. of Hispanic Studies Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60208 j-dagenais [at] nwu__edu
Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 09:24:28 EDT Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: Mark Williams <wilm [at] CALVIN__EDU> Subject: Re: Invasive techniques I seem to recall talking to a guy from (I think) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, of all places, at an American Philological Assn. meeting about ten years ago about the availability of JPL's photographic enhancement techniques for such things as decipherment of MSS. He told me that JPL was more than willing to perform this service, although it would cost a bit. I never followed up on the conversation. Anybody else know whether this service is still available, and at what cost? Sorry to be so vague on this, but it's that time of year.... Mark Williams Internet: WILM [at] calvin__edu Classics Department Voice: (616) 957-6293 Calvin College Fax: (616) 957-8551 Grand Rapids, MI USA 49546
Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 11:14:47 EST Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: Kevin Kiernan <ENG102 [at] UKCC__UKY__EDU> Subject: JPL and image processing On Mon, 18 May 1992 09:24:28 EDT Mark Williams said:
I seem to recall talking to a guy from (I think) Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
... John Benton told me about ten years ago that the person who had been doing image processing of texts at JPL was no longer there and that JPL had moved on to other, less terrestrial interests. Kevin Kiernan, eng102 [at] ukcc__uky__edu Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: Willis Johnson <willis [at] VIOLET__BERKELEY__EDU> Subject: Invasive techniques, photocopying A couple of summers ago I was at a small archive in London, equipped with my lowlight camera (no flash) and tripod preparing to copy a 14th century MS. The archivist suggested that it would be less trouble to simply xerox the MS, and offered the use of his own standard office style xerox machine! Needless to say I declined, mumbling something about making slides. Standards vary... willis [at] violet__berkeley__edu
Date: Tue, 19 May 1992 09:24:19 PDT Reply-To: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> Sender: "Medieval Text - Philology, Codicology, and Technology etc." <MEDTEXTL [at] UIUCVMD__BITNET> From: Charles Faulhaber <cbf [at] ATHENA__BERKELEY__EDU> Subject: Re: Invasive techniques, photocopying It is still standard practice in smaller Spanish libraries and archives to xerox medieval MSS and documents. Apropos, in the latest issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine there were a couple of letters chiding the curators of the Beinecke manuscript collection (photographed in an article in an earlier issue) for improper techniques of handling MSS, including one from a gentlemen who insisted that parchment MSS should only be handled with gloves. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley *** Conservation DistList Instance 6:1 Distributed: Friday, June 5, 1992 Message Id: cdl-6-1-009 ***
Received on Fri Jun 05 1992 - 00:00:00 PDT
Raymond Cormier Longwood University ________________________________________ From: dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca [dm-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Daniel Paul O'Donnell [daniel.odonnell@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2009 4:45 PM To: Digital Medievalist Cc: awisnicki@yahoo.com Subject: [dm-l] Manuscript Imaging Question
Hi all,
I thought I'd pass this on to our list and digital classicist, since some of us may have had experience with similar techniques (I'm relatively sure I saw a talk on the question recently). Please make sure you cc Dr. Wisnicki, since he may not hang out in our circles!
I’ve come across a textual issue that I’m not sure how to resolve, and I’m hoping that someone on the list might have some suggestions or even the answer. I’m currently doing some research on the final African diaries of David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer. While keeping these diaries, Livingstone was often short of paper and, as a result, resorted to various expedients to keep the diaries going. One of these expedients was to take printed pages from books and newspapers, and, by turning the pages 90 degrees, to write his diary over the printed text, but perpendicular to it. Although perhaps legible at the time, these diary entries now are often difficult to decipher: Livingstone’s ink has faded and the printed text obscures what remains.
So, in other words, the diary entries have two layers of text: printed matter which runs horizontally across the page, and Livingstone’s entries which run vertically. I’ve scanned some of these pages and was wondering if there’s a way (or, perhaps, a program) by which I might remove the printed layer so as to make the handwritten layer freestanding and so more legible. Has anyone on the list dealt with (and resolved) a similar issue? If so, please email me at awisnicki@yahoo.com -- any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Dr. Adrian S. Wisnicki Honorary Research Fellow School of English and Humanities Birkbeck College, University of London
-- Daniel Paul O'Donnell Associate Professor of English University of Lethbridge
Chair and CEO, Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org/) Co-Chair, Digital Initiatives Advisory Board, Medieval Academy of America President-elect (English), Society for Digital Humanities/Société pour l'étude des médias interactifs (http://sdh-semi.org/) Founding Director (2003-2009), Digital Medievalist Project (http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/)
Vox: +1 403 329-2377 Fax: +1 403 382-7191 (non-confidental) Home Page: http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/
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