Archive 2.0: Imagining the Michigan State University Israelite Samaritan Scroll Collection

FAIN: HD-50445-08

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
William Hart-Davidson (Project Director: April 2008 to December 2009)

Development of a project that would use new Internet tools and design practices to study and discuss fifteenth-century bible scrolls.

This project will work with Michigan State University units and the A.B. Samaritan Institute in Holon, Israel to create using the latest in Web 2.0 technologies an accessible, useable and living archive for the Israelite Samaritan community in Holon and Nabulus as well as biblical scholars. To facilitate this work we will digitize over the next several years three 15th century Israelite Samaritan Pentateuch scrolls, and provide a unique suite of tools to help facilitate collaboration: social networking, tagging, social bookmarking, zoomify view, and multilingual support. The aim is to bring together two distinct groups of users - textual scholars and members of the Israelite Samaritan community - both of whom have a significant stake in the cultural and scholarly value of the Samaritan Archive, via an online environment in which they can view and interpret the Samaritan texts, interact with members of their respective communities, and interact with one another.