I find this video really amazing from the NMC Campus Observer and I am sure it will intrigue some of my friends (like Dave S. and Sam.)

I have to admit my real intrigue with the NMC was the “digital scriptorium” since I am an collector of rare books and scripts, signed copies and first editions. (My most prized a 1st edition of To Kill a Mocking Bird and 1st edition of When The Sleeper Wakes.) As much as I like digital media…nothing replaces the feel of a real book and there is nothing so aesthetically pleasing as many of the old manuscripts. Those are not only historical artifacts but as I look at them I have to wonder what hands held them before my own, how their owner’s thoughts and actions where shaped. A book is far more than the text printed on it.

The Digital Scriptorium is prototype image database and visual union catalog of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. The project was started in 1996 by the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The model was to be from a scholar’s point of view interactive and expandable. Today it holds over 8,000 color images collected by a collaboration of institutions including University of California Berkeley and Columbia University affiliated libraries, as well as the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and the De Bellis Collection in California.

The purpose of the “Digital Scriptorium” is to unite scattered resources into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. It has evolved into a general union catalog designed for the use of paleographers, codicologists, art historians, textual scholars and other researchers. One advantage of this image database is that It provides public access to fragile materials otherwise available only within libraries.

Note: A scriptorium (plural scriptoria) is a room devoted to the hand-lettered copying of manuscripts. Before the invention of printing by moveable type, a scriptorium was a normal adjunct to a library. After the active destruction of classical libraries in the wake of the Theodosian decrees of the 390s and the collapse of public institutions in general, scriptoria were entirely in Christian hands, from the early 5th century onwards.

Sample: Fragmenta Manuscripta 047

[PDF] File on NMS Campus Visit the scriptorium here. Please take mind of the copyrights.

Check out this video on the NMS Project, gorgeous imagery too boot…are these the campuses of the future? Will everyone have a shot at premium education?

From virtualworldsvideo.com

Technorati Tags:
NMS|Scriptorium|Second Life|campus|Manuscripts|Berkeley|digital worlds|wayneporter.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

Share This