Medieval and Renaissance documents: Reformatting

Sometimes a document needs to be reformatted. Reformatting refers to the process of copying a document from its original form (normally paper or parchment) to another form, such as a photocopy, microfilm or a digitized image. Photocopying is often used when the original source is too damaged for repair (ex. a brittle book), but has no intrinsic value (i.e. the book itself is not valuable, just the information in it). Photocopying often destroys the source document, because it is necessary to unbind the document to properly photocopy it. That is why this process is most often used for non-valuable materials.

Another common type of reformatting is microfilm. The use of microfilm to copy source documents is very wide spread. It is a valuable process because it is relatively inexpensive and standardized. It helps preserve the original document by making it necessary to handle the document less. But it has some draw backs: 1) Microfilmed documents require a special microfilm viewer; 2) microfilmed documents cannot be searched by computer; 3) microfilmed documents cannot be shared via the Internet. The use of digitization does allow documents to be viewed on any computer, to be searched and to be shared via the Internet. Because of these advantages, this blog will focus on reformatting by digitization.

Before considering the possibility of digitizing a medieval document, we must consider the question: What are medieval scholars looking for when viewing original source documents? The original source document contains three types of information of interest to the scholar:

Primary data: This is the actual content--the words written and their meaning. Primary data might also include information the scribe conveyed by underlining words or otherwise embellishing them in order to add emphasis or other meaning.

Secondary data: This is information the scribe or later editors conveyed unintentionally. This might be erasures, censor’s marks or damage, the manner letters were formed or the types of abbreviations used etc.

Physical data: This might be the material the manuscript is written on, such as parchment, vellum or paper, its binding method, and watermarks.

There are several obstacles medieval scholars encounter in their research. These include:

--The need to travel to where the manuscript is housed and the fact that many manuscripts are in pieces whose constituent parts have been scattered to different locations, requiring even more travel.
--The fact that if multiple copies of a manuscript exist, they are normally in different holding institutions and therefore are impossible to compare side-by-side.
--The fact that female scholars often cannot enter certain holding institutions, such as monasteries and other religious buildings.
--Obviously, they are fragile and repeated handling endangers them.

How can digitization of medieval manuscripts address the challenges medieval scholars face, while still providing them the information they need?

--A high quality digital copy does preserve both basic and secondary image data.
--A high quality digital copy does not preserve physical data, but this type of information can be recorded for later reference in metadata.
--Digital copies can be accessed over the Internet and shared via file sharing applications by teams of scholars working on a project, making geographic barriers irrelevant.
--Digital copies of pieces of manuscripts that have been scattered can be electronically reunited and viewed together.
--Multiple copies of manuscripts can be viewed side-by-side for comparison purposes.
--Viewing digital copies protects the fragile original from further damage.

And digitization of medieval manuscripts can offer advantages over viewing original manuscripts, such as:

--The digitization of manuscripts using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software makes searching inside them significantly easier by allowing more complete cataloguing.
--The ability to magnify the captured digital images allows the scholar to examine in great detail the color and texture of the vellum leaves.
--The ability to capture images recorded under ultraviolet light or other filters allows the scholar to read faded ink more easily and to better analyze erasures.
--The ability to improve readability of faded or damaged passages by using photo editing software to enhance contrast.

However, there are several challenges presented by digitization of medieval document. These include:

--Expense: including the need for hardware, such as mounted digital cameras with stands or flatbed scanners to image manuscripts, software to process the images, media to store the images, a network to make the images accessible, skilled personal to create the images and metadata and to manage the computer network, a large number of man hours.
--Lack of image quality and metadata standardization, which results in difficulty sharing data.

The next posts will discuss the process of digital reformatting of manuscripts.

Kiernan, Kevin. (1994). Digital Preservation, Restoration, and Dissemination of Medieval Manuscripts. In Scholarly Publishing on the Electronic Networks, Proceedings of the Third Symposium, ed. Ann Okerson, ARL Publications.

Knoll, A., and S. Psohlavec. (1995). Digitization of old manuscripts. Praha: Narodni knihovna.