Medieval Studies Faculty Colloquium: William Noel

Medieval Studies is pleased to offer the Faculty Colloquium Series for the 2021-22 academic year.

“COVID CODICOLOGY: How to Take a Book Apart, Diagnose Paper, and Classify Metalcuts and Engravings, All From Your Office”

The analysis of the material text has taken a hit in the last couple of years.  This talk tries to show what you can do with a couple of computer tools, a bunch of digital images, and some basic metadata.

William Noel is a curator and librarian who specializes in the study of the medieval and Renaissance European book, and in the application of digital technologies to humanist study. He is the John T. Maltsberger III ’55 Associate University Librarian for Special Collections in Princeton University Library, and Chair of the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries. He has led numerous projects to digitize and data-mine the pre-modern manuscripts of the mid-Atlantic region, and has experience in directing complicated, large digital humanities projects such as the imaging, conservation, and transcription of the Archimedes Palimpsest. He likes to create environments in which lots of people, lots of books, and a bit of technology come together to create new things. He doesn’t write much anymore, but he does talk: he teaches for Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, he delivered the Sandars Lectures in Bibliography in 2019, and he often advocates for open data, as he does in this TED talk.

Registration is required.  Please register here.