A modern-day craft
Last Friday afternoon 8 November, I was at the Royal Library (KB) in The Hague to attend a lecture on digitising medieval manuscripts. A subject of increasing interest.
Medieval manuscripts are unique and fragile objects. Consulting such a special piece is not always easy. The institution where the manuscript is kept may be difficult to reach or the manuscript may be in fragile condition. Digitising medieval manuscripts opens up new possibilities for manuscript researchers as well as a lot of viewing pleasure for admirers. Works that have hardly been seen for centuries can now be viewed by a large audience worldwide. Before that happens however, a lot of work needs to be done and that was precisely what the lecture was about.
You may be aware that major libraries worldwide have been digitising an increasing number of manuscripts in recent years. Not only are more and more digitised manuscripts becoming available but the quality is also improving. Although the confrontation with the real manuscript always exceeds a digital acquaintance, digitisation is still an enormously valuable thing.
There also appear to be many manuscripts in Dutch institutions worth digitising. There are about 5000 manuscripts present in the various institutions of which some 1200 are in the KB.
But what do you do when you want to unlock all these medieval manuscripts in the Netherlands from as many as 90 different institutions into one database? The KB has found a solution to this by sending a travelling project team to the various locations to photograph and digitise these pearls of parchment. This approach still gives institutions that are often too small to digitise their collections themselves the opportunity to put their work online. The project team consists of two young enthusiastic experts: project photographer Janou Munnik and manuscript expert Annelynn Koenders. During the lecture, they explained how things work.
During the lecture the following questions were considered:
- But how exactly do you photograph such an ancient book as authentically as possible?
- How do you make sure this is done safely?
- What equipment do you need to do this?
Photographing is done with an ingenious and portable device to which a camera is attached the so-called: Travellers Conservation Copy Stand. This mobile copy stand was developed by Manfred Mayer, engineer and conservator at the University Library Graz in Austria. With this mobile copy stand manuscripts can be digitised. Its special feature is that it is lightweight and foldable which eliminates the need to transport the manuscripts to a remote location. The copy stand travels in a suitcase to the institutions where the manuscripts are kept.
When digitising, international guidelines are used to ensure image quality. (Preservation Imaging Metamorfoze). These Guidelines are written for mass digitisation of two-dimensional material such as manuscripts, archival materials, books, newspapers and magazines. These guidelines can also be used for digitising photographs, paintings and technical drawings.
Metamorfoze is the national programme for preserving paper heritage and is a partnership between the Royal Library and the National Archives. The programme is an initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
For those interested in this, you can explore further on the Metamorfoze website:https://www.metamorfoze.nl/sites/default/files/documents/Richtlijnen_Preservation_Imaging_Metamorfoze_1.0.pdf
How do you make sure this is done in a safe way?
Again, standard procedures are followed and some of the questions asked beforehand are:
- How is the manageability, the condition of the manuscript?
- Are the pigments, the gold leaf very (too) fragile?
- Are there any loose fragments?
What was also discussed further was that nowadays one does not use a scanner to digitise manuscripts. When using a scanner the manuscript has to be flattened (too) flat, something that does not benefit the binding.
Works are also now digitised in their entirety. Previously one did decide to digitise only the most striking and most beautiful folios and the less visually appealing ones were then not addressed.
The materiality of the work now also plays an important role in digitisation. New techniques can also create and display beautiful three-dimensional recordings. For this purpose, Gaussian splatting photogrammetry can be used. Gaussian splatting is a new digital technique for rendering scenes and objects in 3D. It can model the objects with amazing detail and fidelity, accurately and capturing not only the geometry of the scene but also the lighting and reflections.
The lecture held at the KB was definitely worthwhile for a wide range of people interested in medieval manuscripts. Digital techniques provide a bridge between the manuscript as an object and the interested viewer. A bridge that is constantly being built and increasingly capable of connecting the two sides.
It was about all that building during the lecture, which is a very diverse and intensive work. Bravo to both experts: project photographer Janou Munnik and handwriting expert Annelynn Koenders, who spoke passionately about their work during the lecture. Their work consists of a two-year project where the digitised works are hosted on the digital platform:
