Dear Torsten,

I apologize for my vagueness. The information you provide re: the "nuts and bolts" of the field is very helpful, but the student is also curious about programs, etc, that she can go into to receive training in the field. I found some information from the American Institute for Conservation, thinking perhaps the conservator programs in the US and abroad might be a way to go, but I was wondering if the list had (career?) advice for a student who is interested in going into the field of manuscript conservation. I hope this is a little clearer now!

Thank you all for the suggestions thus far!

~w. -- Wendy Marie Hoofnagle University of Northern Iowa Department of English Language and Literature Baker 117 Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0502 Office: 319.273.7053 Cell: 860.753.2211

----- Original Message ---- From: Torsten Schassan schassan@hab.de To: dm-l@uleth.ca Sent: Fri, March 25, 2011 4:25:47 AM Subject: Re: [dm-l] advice for student?

Hi,

even after Douglas' reply I'm not quite sure I understand the question nor the answers: Are we talking about (are you in need of)

- standards for digitisation - - concerning equipment - - concerning parameters during digitisation - how to organise digitisation - who started digitisation - how to present manuscripts online?

For each of the aspects there are lots of best-practice papers out there, almost every digitisation project has (or should have) these.

Some places/papers to start with:

- "DFG-Praxisregeln Digitalisierung"[1] (in German, sorry). - Digital Scriptorium[2, look for "Technical Information"] - e-codices[3]

to name just a few. If I knew more about the real interests I might give more references.

Best, Torsten

[1] http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/praxisregeln_digital...

[2] http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/about/

[3] http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/info

-- Torsten Schassan Digitale Editionen Abteilung Handschriften und Sondersammlungen Herzog August Bibliothek, Postfach 1364, D-38299 Wolfenbuettel Tel.: +49-5331-808-130 (Fax -165), schassan {at} hab.de

http://www.hab.de/forschung/projekte/europeana-regia.htm http://www.hab.de/forschung/projekte/weiss64.htm

Digital Medievalist -- http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/ Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/ Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/digitalmedieval Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49320313760 Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca Change list options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l

Following on from Rebecca's recommendation - assuming the student is interested particularly in a program that would allow focus on manuscript digitization I would suggest library/information school, particularly one with a focus on preservation, archives, and/or rare books partnered with a university library that has an active digitization program. UNC-Chapel Hill (my alma mater) comes to mind, as does IUB (where I work now), but I'm sure there are others.

Another option is to look for universities not (only) with active library digitization programs, but with computer science (or other engineering departments) with a focus on cultural heritage digitization. The experience gained there would be less straightforward digital scanning and photography and more advanced imaging, perhaps 3D scanning (with a computer science focus). The University of Kentucky (where I used to work)[1] has a library school that is not known for being particularly digitally-focused, but there is both an active preservation and digitization program in the library and the advanced imaging work happening in the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments. I would expect you could build some program as well at University College London (which also has a digital humanities center) - if your student would be interested in moving to England for a time. Education and experience in advanced imaging partnered with serious manuscripts study would be, I think, immensely valuable.

UIUC also has an iSchool plus a digital humanities center plus an active program in advanced imaging of cultural heritage objects.

There are a lot of options, it really depends on where she wants to focus.

Dot

[1] I'm really not being pushy, I'm just going with what I know!

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Welzenbach, Rebecca rwelzenb@umich.edu wrote:

Dear Wendy,

I think the student will want to think about if she wants to specialize in conservation (that is, stabilizing and restoring physical objects--think tiny brushes, adhesives, etc.) or digitization (creating and managing images of physical objects like manuscripts).

In the first instance, she'll need a solid background in chemistry, among other things, to move forward. In the second, her training in digital photography/imaging is probably a good start.

If she's interested in all of it, I recommend that she consider library/information school. At the very least, she should check out any preservation/digitization projects going on at the Northern Iowa University Library to learn more about the field.  If there's not a separate preservation department, the archivist or special collections librarian is probably a good place to start.

I'm certainly biased since this is the route I took, but in my program (the University of Michigan's School of information, which offers a specialization in preservation http://si.umich.edu/msi/pi.htm) I had opportunities to do physical conservation/preservation work and to work on digitization projects.

Iowa State University offers a preservation internship that I've heard spoken of very highly, but it is open only to graduate students in this field: http://www.lib.iastate.edu/narrative-main/4010/11041

Good luck to her!

Rebecca Welzenbach MPublishing / Text Creation Partnership University of Michigan Library rwelzenb@umich.edu

On 3/25/11 8:19 AM, "Wendy Hoofnagle" sailordie@yahoo.com wrote:

...

Dear Torsten,

I apologize for my vagueness.  The information you provide re: the "nuts and bolts" of the field is very helpful, but the student is also curious about programs, etc, that she can go into to receive training in the field.  I found some information from the American Institute for Conservation, thinking perhaps the conservator programs in the US and abroad might be a way to go, but I was wondering if the list had (career?) advice for a student who is interested in going into the field of manuscript conservation.  I hope this is a little clearer now!

Thank you all for the suggestions thus far!

~w.

Wendy Marie Hoofnagle University of Northern Iowa Department of English Language and Literature Baker 117 Cedar Falls, IA  50614-0502 Office: 319.273.7053 Cell: 860.753.2211

----- Original Message ---- From: Torsten Schassan schassan@hab.de To: dm-l@uleth.ca Sent: Fri, March 25, 2011 4:25:47 AM Subject: Re: [dm-l] advice for student?

Hi,

even after Douglas' reply I'm not quite sure I understand the question nor the answers: Are we talking about (are you in need of)

• standards for digitisation
• • concerning equipment
• • concerning parameters during digitisation
• how to organise digitisation
• who started digitisation
• how to present manuscripts online?

For each of the aspects there are lots of best-practice papers out there, almost every digitisation project has (or should have) these.

Some places/papers to start with:

• "DFG-Praxisregeln Digitalisierung"[1] (in German, sorry).
• Digital Scriptorium[2, look for "Technical Information"]
• e-codices[3]

to name just a few. If I knew more about the real interests I might give more references.

Best, Torsten

[1] http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/foerderung/programme/lis/praxisregeln_digital... ierung.pdf

[2] http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/about/

[3] http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/info

-- Torsten Schassan Digitale Editionen Abteilung Handschriften und Sondersammlungen Herzog August Bibliothek, Postfach 1364, D-38299 Wolfenbuettel Tel.: +49-5331-808-130 (Fax -165), schassan {at} hab.de

http://www.hab.de/forschung/projekte/europeana-regia.htm http://www.hab.de/forschung/projekte/weiss64.htm

Digital Medievalist --  http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/ Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/ Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/digitalmedieval Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49320313760 Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca Change list options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l

Digital Medievalist --  http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/ Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/ Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/digitalmedieval Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49320313760 Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca Change list options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l

Digital Medievalist --  http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/ Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/ Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/digitalmedieval Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gidI320313760 Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca Change list options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l