The cataloguing of medical manuscripts
Please join us for our first session of 2022, when Anna Dysert (McGill University Library) and Laura Nuvoloni (Holkham Hall) will explore different approaches to cataloguing medieval European medical manuscripts.
Laura Nuvoloni, 'Script, hidden decoration, fragmentary foliation and faded inscriptions are the clues: examples from a perplexed cataloguer'
The aim of manuscript cataloguing is to provide information on the transmission and reception of texts throughout the centuries. It is therefore of paramount importance that the data that we, cataloguers, are able to provide are as correct as possible, regardless of which electronic database or printed catalogue our manuscript descriptions are going to be recorded in. Cataloguing medieval medical manuscripts can be daunting for non-experts in medieval medical history and texts as I was and still am. I soon found out, though, that the manuscripts and their structure, decoration, textual additions, notes and inscriptions offered the clues on how to navigate through the complexity of their texts as well as providing information to their history as individual material objects.
In my talk I will therefore show the results of my search for clues in some of the medieval medical manuscripts in the Harley collection at the British Library and the Western holdings at Wellcome Collection, with the help of online digital images and facsimiles.
Laura Nuvoloni is the Curator of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books at Holkham Hall. She previously was Incunabula Cataloguer in the Department of Rare Books at Cambridge University Library (2009-2015), Curator and Cataloguer in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library (2000-2009), and Assistant Expert in the Department of Western Manuscripts at Sotheby’s London (1998-2000). She graduated in Italian Philology at the University of Venice, and her specialist field of research is the production of manuscripts in Renaissance Italy with particular regard for their palaeographical, codicological and decorative aspects, and provenance history. She teaches Italian Palaeography at the London International Palaeography School.
She gained her experience in cataloguing medieval medical manuscripts as Project Officer of the Medieval Medical Harley Manuscripts Project at the British Library (2005-2007) and Consultant Cataloguer of pre-1500 Western Manuscripts and Incunabula at Wellcome Collection (2016 and 2017).
Anna Dysert, 'Medieval manuscripts in Wikidata'
This talk will explore emerging work to translate medieval manuscript cataloguing into the Wikidata platform. Wikidata, a sister project to Wikipedia, is an open, community-driven knowledge base of structured and linked information. Linked data works by creating statements with multiple pieces of linked, machine-readable information, as opposed to the text strings used in traditional cataloguing practice, allowing researchers to run highly complex and granular research queries. We will look at linked data principles and specific examples of manuscripts catalogued in Wikidata, and consider the implications for manuscript research and discovery.
Anna Dysert is an associate librarian at the McGill University Library, where she specializes in rare book and archival cataloguing. She was previously a librarian at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine. She holds an MA from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto and an MLIS in Archival Studies from McGill’s School of Information Studies. Also a student of premodern medical manuscripts, she has an interest in the meeting of manuscript studies and innovations in digital access and metadata models. Current projects include work on the Latin manuscripts of Isaac Israeli’s Universal Diets and on Wikidata in archival and manuscript metadata. She has been the recipient of the Newberry Library/Ecole nationale des chartes Exchange Fellowship and the DeGruyter European Librarianship Study Grant offered by the European Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries.