Conference 'Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective' (2018)
Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective: State of the Art, Common Challenges, Future Directions
Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Hamburg
7 - 10 May 2018
Conference Outline
During the last few decades, the study of the materiality of manuscripts (not only in codex form) belonging to European, Asian and African traditions has made significant progress, with a relevant impact on the understanding of their contents and the approaches to their scientific description. Scholars have become aware that the presentation of data in standard manuscript catalogues often does not allow to understand correctly the structure of the objects in relation to their contents, and sometimes even leads to the suspicion that their physical and historical complexity had escaped the attention of the cataloguers themselves.
At the same time, printed catalogues have been gradually complemented or replaced by electronic ones, increasingly numerous and varied as regards their features, promoters, and quality of the outcome. As a consequence, contemporary manuscript cataloguers ought to have not only a good training in the fields of palaeography and codicology and a solid knowledge of text histories, but also a growing familiarity with IT languages and architectures: a varied set of basic knowledge and skills that only a long and patient practice allows to strengthen and refine.
Despite the existence of old and prestigious cataloguing traditions, reflected in rigorous and comprehensive operational standards, a cursory glance into the existing manuscript catalogues (even within one and the same manuscript culture) is enough to perceive the high level of heterogeneity in the description of the physical features of the manuscripts, including the most basic and recurrent ones, even though these features (dimensions, collation, ruling techniques and types…) are often the same in manuscripts belonging to different cultural areas and of different contents: needless to say, the solutions applied are not all equally convincing. The same is also true for the rendering of the contents, still very lacking both from the point of view of the identification and the consistent representation of titles and authors’ names. More recently, comparative codicology also evidenced the lack of basic common standards for the physical description of non-codex books from different cultural areas.
As for the advent of electronic descriptions, the experiences gained during the last twenty years have shown that the way to fully exploit the potential of IT in the field of manuscript cataloguing is not as straightforward and simple as one might have expected and hoped: between uncritical enthusiasm and equally radical refuse, the need is increasingly felt for a sober assessment of the advantages and limitations of electronic catalogues and for a thoughtful reflection on the further developments and the conditions required to make e-catalogues durable and useful in a long range perspective.
The conference’s scope is
- to briefly summarize and compare the state, main methods and perspectives of manuscript cataloguing (both in print and online) in a wide range of European, Asian and African manuscript cultures;
- to make scholars and cataloguers aware of the approaches in use, encourage them to discuss the reasons for their adoption and their compared relevance;
- to help them define their own cataloguing approach and employ it to correctly understand the manuscripts, and clearly describe their original structure, their contents and the evolution they may have undergone in the course of time.
The programme includes examples of recent achievements (and still open problems) in the main manuscript cultures; comparisons of methods and strategies which may be applied to the description of the single ‘external’, ‘internal’ and ‘historical’ features of the manuscript book - with examples of good practices and open challenges; an insight into the state and the further developments of electronic cataloguing and digital collections, with an overview of open issues and a focus on the most needed missing tools. Printed and on-line catalogues will not be dealt with separately, but assessed and compared within each session with regard to their specific contribution to the progress of cataloguing methods.
Scholars working on manuscripts from European, Asian and African book traditions will contribute to stimulate reflection on the following aspects:
- models of printed and on-line catalogues belonging to different traditions, which may serve as basis for a shared reflection on the treatment of physical, content-related, and historical features;
- methods for the (printed or on-line) description of contents (texts, images, music…), physical features (book structure, materials, ruling, layout, navigating devices, scribal features… );
- examples of repertories, collections and resources for the description of manuscripts (unique identifiers, collections of texts, repertories of scribes, etc.);
- suggestions and experiences aimed at a better integration of best practices between traditional printed catalogues, electronic catalogues and on-line image collections.
By presenting a choice of significant case studies, the conference aims to pin-point some major issues in manuscript cataloguing, aiming to mutual enrichment, and also – where possible – to the identification of realistic objectives of harmonization of approaches and best practices.
Patrick Andrist, Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich, Marilena Maniaci
Conference contributions
The conference on “Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective” was a rich and stimulating event. We are now looking forward to creating other opportunities to address more specifically the several methodological, technical, and operational aspects touched by the speakers in their presentations and during the lively discussions. In the meantime, as it was also suggested by some of the conference participants, we tough it would be useful to leave a trace of the many interesting achievements, projects, tools, and ideas presented at the conference, and to share them with the wider scholar community. The speakers were therefore invited to freely share a copy of their presentations, a brief summary or a richer outline of their talks, or even its whole text, etc. We are very thankful to all those who responded positively to our proposal: the materials they generously sent are available below.
E-mail addresses of the contributors
Patrick Andrist and Marialena Maniaci
Opening introduction to the conference
Patrick Andrist and Marialena Maniaci
Codifying physical features
Presentation
Javier del Barco
Practices and Challenges, Old and New, in the Cataloguing of Hebrew Manuscripts
Abstract
Alessandro Bausi
Cataloguing Ethiopic manuscripts: update and overview on ongoing work
Text of the presentation
Marina Bernasconi
How digital libraries may influence the description of medieval manuscripts: working with e-codices
Abstract
Alberto Campagnolo
A new model for the description of the collation of manuscripts and related tools
Abstract | Presentation
Matthieu Cassin
ISMI: International Standard Manuscript Identifier.Project of unique and stable identifiers for Manuscripts
Abstract | Presentation
Nuria de Castilla
Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective: State of the Art, Common Challenges, Future Directions
Text of the presentation
Steve Delamarter
What is the Place of Paratextual Information in a Catalogue? The Social Lives of the Ethiopian Psalter Project
Text of the presentation
Saskia Dirkse
Introducing the Structural Visualization of Manuscripts (StruViMan): Principles, Methods, Aims and Prospects
Abtract | Presentation | Text of the presentation
Claudia Fabian
Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective: State oft he Art, Common Challenges, Future Directions
Presentation | Text of the presentation
Yasmin Faghihi
TEI standards for codicology
Abstract | Presentation
Emmanuel Francis
Notable Codicological and Textual Features of Tamil Palm-leaf Manuscripts left Unmentioned in Catalogues
Abstract | Presentation
Matthieu Husson
Describing contents of astronomical manuscripts: the case of astronomical tables
Abstract | Presentation
Pietro Maria Liuzzo
La ‘Syntaxe du codex’ and TEI. Models, mappings and visualization tools
Abstract | Presentation
Christoph Mackert
Between Cataloguing In-Depth and Collecting Basic, Standardized Information Current Trends in Manuscript Description in Germany
Presentation | Text of the presentation
Columba Stewart
Metadata Standards, Authority Control, and Initial Steps Toward Linked Data in a Comparative and Comprehensive Cataloging Environment
Abstract | Presentation
Timothy L. Stinson
Codicological Descriptions in the Digital Age
Presentation | Text of the presentation
Ronny Vollandt
How to navigate through a corpus of 10.000 Arabic Bible MSS with a research question in mind?
Presentation