Creating a Committee for Manuscript, Rare Book, and Archive Studies

FAIN: AA-277700-21

Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)
Marina A. Rustow (Project Director: July 2020 to present)

The development of undergraduate and graduate curricula in Manuscript, Rare Book and Archive Studies.

This is a proposal to launch a Committee on Manuscript, Rare Book and Archive Studies (MARBAS) at Princeton University. MARBAS is the initiative of a group of faculty and library staff devoted to teaching with original objects from global cultures before 1600, including manuscripts, documents, early printed books, papyri, coins, inscriptions and archives. Our goals are to bring students into contact with premodern texts and objects, to make specialized techniques (including digital methods) accessible to an expanded pool of instructors and non-specialists, to encourage comparison, and to make the use of physical evidence central to the humanities. We will help make the techniques for teaching with objects widely accessible, develop and distribute tools for undergraduate and graduate teaching with original artifacts, and make these tools scalable and replicable with or without physical access to special collections, whether due to geography, resources or travel restrictions.

Associated Products

MARBAS website (Web Resource)
Title: MARBAS website
Author: Marina Rustow
Author: Stephanie Luescher
Author: Ksenia Ryzhova
Abstract: Our website serves is our main platfrom for aggreggating and disseminating information on relevant courses, events, resources, news, training and funding opportunities in the humanities.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/
Primary URL Description: This is the home page for the MARBAS website.
Secondary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/resources
Secondary URL Description: Our resource list includes digitized collections, study guides, 3D models, image banks (and more) to help make premodern objects accessible regardless of proximity to archives, museums and other repositories.

"PUL & MARBAS Present ..." Spring 2022 Schedule (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: "PUL & MARBAS Present ..." Spring 2022 Schedule
Abstract: "PUL & MARBAS Present ..." Spring 2022 Schedule
Date Range: March 1 - May 19 2022
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf411/files/2022-05/pul_marbas_present_full_spring_2022_event_calendar_pink_and_blue.png

Princeton Machine Learning and the Future of Philology Symposium (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Princeton Machine Learning and the Future of Philology Symposium
Abstract: Princeton Machine Learning and the Future of Philology Symposium Schedule
Date Range: December 9, 2023
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf411/files/2022-11/cdh_ml_and_philology_symposium_poster_draft343_page_2.png

"PUL & MARBAS Presents ..." Fall 2022 Schedule (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: "PUL & MARBAS Presents ..." Fall 2022 Schedule
Abstract: "PUL & MARBAS Presents ..." Fall 2022 Schedule
Date Range: September 15 - December 15, 2022
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf411/files/2022-09/pulmarbas_fall_2022.png

Introduction to HTR: Handwritten Text Recognition Technologies of Medieval Manuscripts (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Introduction to HTR: Handwritten Text Recognition Technologies of Medieval Manuscripts
Abstract: A revolution has slowly begun in the study of historical documents: Machine Learning tools have been developed to allow for the automatic transcription of documents. Over the last decade, these tools can now help assist in the production of texts from medieval manuscripts at previously unobtainable levels of accuracy. Today, libraries have used these tools to make their collections searchable, while researchers have sped up the process of creating editions of texts and adopted them for the study of medieval documents. The course will offer an introduction into some of these ongoing projects, but more importantly provide an introduction into the practice of studying medieval documents with Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technologies. The course will have two main parts: 4 online sessions and a three-day in person workshop in Vienna. During the first phase, participants will be introduced to both the theory of handwritten text recognition and its practical application using the Transkribus (transkribus.eu) tool. We will then work in four groups, focusing on four different periods and languages: Carolingian Latin, late medieval Latin, late medieval German, and late medieval Czech. Each group will have its own supervisor and its goal will be to train an HTR model for each type of writing. During the in-person workshop in Vienna, we will finalize the four projects and publish our results online: both the transcriptions and Handwritten Text Recognition models. Additionally, we will also visit libraries in Vienna to see selected manuscripts in person. Finally, we will test other machine learning tools for their automatic transcription outcomes and use other digital tools. The course will be taught by a team of experts in HTR, medieval manuscript studies and Latin, German and Czech philology. At the end of the course, you will receive a certificate.
Date Range: October-December 2022
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/events/2022/winter-school-introduction-htr-handwritten-text-recognition-technologies-medieval

A. S. Yahuda and Arabic Manuscripts Seminar (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: A. S. Yahuda and Arabic Manuscripts Seminar
Abstract: Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877-1951) is one of the most enigmatic, influential, and overlooked Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century. Born into an Iraqi-Jewish and German-Jewish family in Ottoman Jerusalem and educated in Germany, Yahuda was a scholar of Hebrew and Arabic texts and held the first-ever university professorship in Jewish studies, at the University of Madrid. For more than three decades, Yahuda made his living as a manuscript dealer, buying rare Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts and selling them to libraries and collectors in Europe and North America, including the British Museum, the Irish-American collector Cheater Beatty, Princeton University, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Michigan, Yale University, and the U.S. Army Medical College (now the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland). At the end of his life, he bequeathed his remaining collection to the National Library of Israel, including the archive of Isaac Newton. Examining all Yahuda’s activities from three-hundred-sixty degrees reveals a network of local cosmopolitans and entrepreneurs who capitalized on their knowledge and access to antiquities as the old imperial order crumbled. His correspondence provides essential information on the provenance of Middle Eastern and South Asian manuscripts, information that is otherwise difficult and painstaking to reconstruct.
Date Range: June 2021–June 2022
Location: Zoom
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s1qlHTQS3dvCt-vZbQaNZG9eEG8-kW_O/view

A. S. Yahuda and Arabic Manuscripts Symposium (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: A. S. Yahuda and Arabic Manuscripts Symposium
Abstract: At this symposium, we will share written drafts of the papers from the Yahuda Seminar series among participants and discuss revisions toward the publication of a collaborative book on Yahuda.
Date Range: June 2023
Location: The Chester Beatty, Dublin
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b-6GBLp5STbOLs1s0OW-z2dlLxi3TILCap0aZA55YDo/edit?usp=sharing
Primary URL Description: Symposium schedule (tentative)

Princeton Paleography Labs (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Princeton Paleography Labs
Abstract: Princeton Paleography Labs are a fun, low-stress environment in which students and faculty members collaboratively try their hand at deciphering premodern manuscripts. The founder of our Latin Paleography Lab was an undergraduate student, J. J. Lopez Haddad. He is responsible for the poster linked below. The Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Paleography Labs organized their sessions via email and Slack.
Date Range: Spring 2022–Spring 2023
Primary URL: https://marbas.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf411/files/2022-10/pplab_poster.png

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