Jane Birkin‘s new book, Archive, Photography and the Language of Administration (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), will almost certainly be of interest to readers of this blog. Birkin writes in her introduction that she aims ‘to communicate the meaning of the archive through its operations, which I have observed on a day-to-day basis. At the same […]
Category Archives: imaging technologies
Virtual unfolding: New digital techniques for opening complex documents
posted by mdever
An exciting breakthrough has been announced this week, one that permits researchers to read letters without unfolding them, offering new ways of managing sealed and fragile documents. Using a combination of X-rays and 3-D imagining techniques, researchers virtually “opened” four letters from the Brienne Collection, a trunk filled with 2,600 notes sent from Europe to the […]
New: The Digital Materiality of Digitized Manuscripts
posted by mdever
A new book by Cornelis van Lit investigates how we might think about the materiality of digitized manuscripts. Of particular interest may be the chapter ‘The Digital Materiality of Digitized Manuscripts”. Often distinctions between analogue sources and digital surrogates turn on the latter’s apparent loss or lack of materiality, a proposition that is challenged here. […]
New book on technology and complex materiality
posted by mdever
ARC Humanities Press has released the new title by Bill Endres, Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts: The St. Chad Gospels, Materiality, Recoveries, and Representation in 2D & 3D. While outside the historical period mainly covered on archivefutures, it may be of interest nevertheless in terms of the how it advances debates around digital technology and complex materiality. […]
The taste of the archive in the digital age: article
posted by mdever
Quite exciting to locate this article today via the Documentary Heritage News digest: Le goût de l’archive à l’ère numérique published in La vie des idées. Anyone familiar with Arlette Farge’s book will immediately recognise the reference and also the importance of seeking to extend her thinking into the digital era. By the time Farge’s wonderful […]
Surfacing the Page
posted by mdever
Big Ideas, The National Archives, Kew ‘SURFACING THE PAGE‘ Wednesday 22nd November 1.00-2.00pm: Maryanne Dever, Kate Sweetapple, Jacquie Lorber Kasunic, University of Technology Sydney. This session contains three short integrated presentations that take up the theme of ‘surfacing the page’. You can listen to the talks here. We talk of ‘surfacing’ here in not a literal sense […]
CFP: Summoning the Archive
posted by mdever
A Symposium on the Periodical, Printed Matter, and Digital Archiving at the Institute for Public Knowledge New York University 11-13 May 2017 Organizer: Meghan Forbes, NYU and UT-Austin Keynote Speaker: Jenna Freedman, Barnard The printing and distribution of the avant-garde magazine, illustrated weekly, and underground zine have developed in the twentieth century in […]
Photo-Objects. On the Materiality of Photographs and Photo-Archives in the Humanities and Sciences
posted by mdever
15 – 17 February 2017 Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai Via dei Servi 51 50122 Florence ITALY Keynote-Speakers: Lorraine Daston, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University, Leicester Photographs are not only images, but also historically shaped three-dimensional objects. They hold a physical presence, bear traces of handling and use […]
CFP Special issue: Digital Medieval Manuscript Cultures
posted by mdever
Archive Journal has published a call for papers for a special issue. Deadline: extended to 1 January 2017 In medieval manuscript studies, an important feature of the “digital turn” has been the creation of digital surrogates. Until recently, this activity has taken one of two forms: either the digitization of major categories of manuscripts (such […]
What is Digital Preservation?
posted by mdever
As part of Born Digital 2016 the State Library of New South Wales has published a post on the best strategies and practices to preserve a Library’s collection digitally. Here’s a short extract: “Digital preservation can be defined as: The coordinated and ongoing set of processes and activities that ensure long-term, error-free storage of digital information, with […]
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