Introducing Book Science - a Reading List for the Fisher Summer Seminar

For over a century, scholars have been working with scientists, conservators, librarians, and other specialists to try to uncover books’ hidden stories — to try to read more not only into their texts, but into their covers, colours, ink, pages, and bindings, as well as their pollen, mould, wormholes, and stains. Often these collaborations seek answers to questions about who made and modified these written artefacts, with what materials and techniques, and why. At other times, they have been focussed on addressing challenges surrounding books’ conservation, care, and access as fragile and irreplaceable representatives of cultural heritage. A significant number of these investigations focus on how to improve our own research methods — to understand and minimize the harm they might cause, to make the most of the knowledge to be gained, and to plan projects with sensitivity to researchers’ ethical responsibilities to the books and the communities that they were created to serve.

‘Book science’ is becoming increasingly recognized as an umbrella term uniting these various fields and areas of interdisciplinary study of historical books and other written artefacts. If you have never heard of book science, here is a very short introductory reading list to acquaint you with some of the main methods and areas of research. It is by no means comprehensive, but it can get you started on your journey.

Read This First:

Panayatova, Stella, ed. The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts: A Handbook. Brepols, 2021.

This book offers an excellent introduction to collaboration and to some of the main scientific methods of analysis currently available. Please excuse the quality of the PDFs!

Some Pitfalls, Controversies, and Ethical Considerations:

Loyer, Jessie. “Collections are our Relatives: Disrupting the Singular White Man’s Joy that Shaped Collections.” The Collector and the Collected: Decolonizing Area Studies Librarianship, edited by Meagan Browndorf, Erin Pappas, and Anna Arays, Library Juice Press, 2021 – not directly relating to scientific analysis but critical for thinking about the ethics of studying works of cultural heritage in a colonial context.

Rabin, Ira and Hahn, Oliver. “Detection of Fakes: the Merits and Limits of Non-Invasive Materials Analysis.” Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China. edited by Cécile Michel and Michael Friedrich, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. pp.281-290. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714333-013

Walton, Marc. “The Pitfalls of Using Scientific Methods to Authenticate Archaeological Artifacts.” SAS Bulletin 37.4, 2014, pp. 1–4. https://socarchsci.org/images/bulletin/SAS3704.pdf

Ink and Pigment Analysis:

Colini, C., Shevchuk, I., Huskin, KA., Rabin, I., and Hahn, O. “A New Standard Protocol for Identification of Writing Media.” Exploring Written Artefacts: Objects, Methods, and Concepts, edited by Jörg B. Quenzer, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021, pp.161–182. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753301-009

Dupey García, Elodie. “The Materiality of Color in Pre-Columbian Codices: Insights From Cultural History.” Ancient Mesoamerica 28.1, 2017, pp. 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536116000493

Gameson, Richard, ed. The Pigments of Medieval British Illuminators: A Scientific and Cultural Study. Archetype Publications, 2023.

Biocodicology:

Calhoun, Joshua. “Book Microbiomes: Foxing, Fungi, and ‘loveliness in all its forms’.” The Unfinished Book, edited by Deidre Lynch and Alexandra Gillespie, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 460-473.

Fiddyment S, Teasdale MD, Vnouček J, Lévêque É, Binois A, Collins MJ. “So you want to do biocodicology? A field guide to the biological analysis of parchment.” Heritage Science 7.35, 2019. https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-019-0278-6

Vnouček, Jıří. “Not all that shines like vellum is necessarily so.” Care and Conservation 17, 2021, pp. 27–59.

Radiocarbon Dating:

Brock, Fiona. “Radiocarbon Dating of Historical Parchments.” Radiocarbon 55.2, 2013, pp. 353–63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200057477

Kasso, TM., Oinonen, M., Mizohata, K., Tahkokallio, JK and Heikkilä, T. “Volumes of Worth—Delimiting the Sample Size for Radiocarbon Dating of Parchment.” Radiocarbon 63.1, 2021, pp. 105–120. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2020.128

Plofker, K., Keller, A., Hayashi, T., Montelle, C and Wujastyk, D. “The Bakhshālī Manuscript: A Response to the Bodleian Library’s Radiocarbon Dating.” The History of Science in South Asia 5.1, 2017, pp. 134-150. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01666444/document

Recovery of Palimpsested Text:

Easton, Roger and Noel, William. “Infinite possibilities: Ten years of study of the archimedes palimpsest.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 154.1, 2010, pp. 50–76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20721527 

Father Justin Sinaites and Toth, Michael B. Spectral Imaging at St. Catherine's Monastery to Reveal Ancient Texts. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -11-19, 2012. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2021688998/. 

Giacometti, A., Campagnolo, A., MacDonald, L., Mahony, S., Robson, S., Weyrich, T., Terras, M., and Gibson, A. "The value of critical destruction: Evaluating multispectral image processing methods for the analysis of primary historical texts." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32.1, 2017, pp 101–122. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqv036

Hone, J., "Pope’s Scrapes and Ghosts." The Review of English Studies, 75.319, 2024, pp 198–208. https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgae027

Kleynhans, T., Carr, M, and Messinger, D. "Low-cost, user friendly multispectral imaging system for the recovery of damaged, faded or palimpsested historical documents." Proc. SPIE 11727, Algorithms, Technologies, and Applications for Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging XXVII, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2585629

Zawacki, Alexander J., et al. "Fragments under the Lens: A Case Study of Multispectral versus Hyperspectral Imaging for Manuscript Recovery." Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 12.1, 2023, pp. 123-143. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2023.0004.

Recovery of Inaccessible Text and Hidden Structures:

Chapman, Christy Y., et al. "The Digital Compilation and Restoration of Herculaneum Fragment P.Herc.118." Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, 6.1, 2021, p. 1-32. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/mns.2021.0000.

Dambrogio, J., Ghassaei, A., Smith, D.S. et al. “Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography.” Nature Communications 12.1184, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21326-w

Dilley, Paul C., et al. "The X-Ray Micro-CT of a Full Parchment Codex to Recover Hidden Text: Morgan Library M.910, an Early Coptic Acts of the Apostles Manuscript." Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 7.1, 2022, pp. 162-174. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/mns.2022.0003

Sargan, J. D., et al. "The Ghosts of Bindings Past: Micro-Computed X-Ray Tomography for the Study of Bookbinding." Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 11.1, 2022, pp. 142-173. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2022.0009.

Stromer, D., Christlein, V., Huang, X. et al. “Virtual cleaning and unwrapping of non-invasively digitized soiled bamboo scrolls.” Sci Rep 9.2311, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39447-0

"Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll!” Vesuvius Challenge, February 2023, https://scrollprize.org/grandprize

Deep Learning Approaches to Automated Transcription:

"AI for Cultural Heritage." YouTube, uploaded by Ethics at Work, Jul 12, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LZbORX7o4g

Grieggs, Samuel et al. "Automated Transcription of Gə'əz Manuscripts Using Deep Learning." Digital Humanities Quarterly 17.3, 2023, https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/3/000682/000682.html

Data Management:

"Care Principles for Indigenous Data Governance." GIDA | Global Indigenous Data Alliance, https://www.gida-global.org/care

"Data Management Plans." University of Toronto Libraries, https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/researchdata/data-management-plans

"Data Management Plan (DMP) - Planning Checklist." University of Toronto Libraries, https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/sites/default/public/rdm/DMP_Planning_Checklist_UTL_2024-03-25.pdf

"Fair Principles." GO FAIR, 2016 https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

"Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy - Frequently Asked Questions." Research Data Management | Government of Canada, October 28, 2021, https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/interagency-research-funding/policies-and-guidelines/research-data-management/tri-agency-research-data-management-policy-frequently-asked-questions