Are you curious about what manuscripts can tell us beyond their texts? Join Digital Scholarship @ Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries for a hands-on workshop using data from manuscript catalogues to explore trends and patterns in medieval manuscript production. You’ll learn: You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with manuscripts from the Bodleian’s collections, learning …
Tag: History of the Book
History of the Book Projects 2025
Eighth week of Michaelmas brought the moment we had all been waiting for… having spent the term learning from the experts, it was time for the History of the Book students to put all their newly-founded knowledge into practice. With over a million special collections items to choose from, finding a project was no easy …
Early Modern German Culture Seminar
The South-East UK Early Modern German Network is delighted to announce its 2025 programme which focusses on early modern printing practices and material culture. All welcome! Monday 20 January, 13:30-15:00, Zoom OnlineJacqui Pearce (Museum of London Archaeology) Bartmann Goes Global! How German stoneware travelled round the known world in the 16th/17th century Monday 3 February, …
Caring for Collections at St Edmund Hall
Week five’s class at St Edmund Hall offered a fascinating glimpse into the world of library management and the art of caring for collections. Guided by James Howarth, the Hall Librarian, and Emma Carter, the Assistant Librarian, we delved into the practical and philosophical aspects of preserving books—not just for their content, but also for …
Don’t ignore the binding!
by Viviane Arnold, MSt. Modern Languages As the term slowly is coming to the end we had another highlight in our History of the Book course. The class was taught by Andrew Honey, a Book Conservator from the Bodleian Libraries who gave us exciting insights in the method of bookbinding and showed us how the …
History of the book vs the (digital) world
By Matthew McConkey As anyone who has grappled with Single Sign-on can attest, humanities researchers and IT are often uneasy bedfellows. It was this perceived <div>ide that the 2024 history of the book students confronted last Wednesday: just what hides behind the intimidating pseudonyms ‘XML’ and ‘TEI?’ Luckily, we had an expert guide in Emma …
Seeing Materiality through a Computer’s Eyes
Following our foray into textual encoding last week, Dr Giles Bergel joined us from the Visual Geometry Group (https://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/) to talk about book-historical uses of computer vision. Originally trained as a book historian, Dr Bergel gave us an overview of the theory behind it, how it has been used in humanities projects, and what computer …
Star-struck: A stellar session on mediaeval astronomical instruments
By Edie Young (MSt in Modern Languages) Last week, History of the Book students had the rare opportunity to examine Merton College’s collection of mediaeval astronomical instruments, which were exceptionally out of their cases. Dr Laure Miolo gave a dazzling presentation on mediaeval astrolabes, equatoria, quadrants, and astronomical manuscripts. Laure brought her very own replica …
History of the Book meets Palaeography!
Of making many books there may be no end, but studying the boundless treasure of manuscripts held in the Weston Library is anything but a weariness of the flesh. That was, at least, the experience of the MML History of the Book students on Wednesday of 2nd week as they ventured up to the Horton …
In the beginning was the book
by Charlie Burrows (MSt. Modern Languages) Over the holidays, this year’s History of the Book class was set the simple but daunting task of choosing a book to present to the class during their first session of Michaelmas Term. Students might have been lured into thinking this to be an easy task when compared to …