from parchment to pixel: digitizing medieval manuscripts at the walters art museum dr. lynley anne...

From Parchment to Pixel:Digitizing Medieval Manuscripts

at the Walters Art Museum

Dr. Lynley Anne Herbert

Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books, Walters Art Museum

lherbert@thewalters.org

The Walters Art MuseumManuscripts & Rare Books

• 923 illuminated and illustrated medieval and Islamic manuscripts, both religious and secular in nature

• Second most significant collection in the Western Hemisphere

• A collection of exceptional quality, containing consummate works of art

Projects

• Islamic Digital Resource • (2008-2010): • 128 Islamic codices and 60 loose leaves

• Parchment to Pixel (2010-2012): • 105 English, Dutch, German, Byzantine, Armenian,

Spanish, Russian, and Ethiopian codices

• Imaging the Hours (2012-2015): • 112 Flemish codices, including 80 books of hours

• Generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities

• All data released on a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license

How can you see the images?

• The Digital Walters• Walters Art Museum Web site• Flickr• Twitter• UNESCO World Digital Library• Academic databases: ArtSTOR,

Digital Scriptorium, Index of Christian Art

What is the impact?

Why do this?

Copyright Randy Asplund, www.randyasplund.com