In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the 12th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age.

The concept of linked open data is the holy grail of the digital humanities. Yet the problem of how to link information across platforms has existed since civilization began. As knowledge and learning expanded in premodern society, the problems associated with collecting, combining and disseminating information inspired new approaches to and technologies for the material text. In the internet age, we continue to grapple with the same problems and issues. While technologies have changed, the questions remain the same.

This year’s symposium explores the connections between historic and current approaches to data linkage in regard to manuscripts and manuscript research. This symposium, Hooking Up, addresses the topic from a variety of angles and considers how the manuscript book operates as a vehicle for information retrieval and dissemination—from the technology of the page and the textual apparatus of a book—to the library and finally, the internet. The speakers will also consider such questions as how medieval practices of memory shaped information retrieval and gathering, how the technology of the manuscript book—in all its many forms—facilitated or hindered information processing, how can medieval solutions inform modern technologies, and how do modern technologies illuminate medieval practices? 

The program will also feature sessions highlighting projects that are advancing linked data technologies for manuscript researchers, including the T-AP Digging Into Data Challenge project Mapping Manuscript Migrations.

The program will begin Thursday evening, November 21, 5 p.m., at the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, with introductions by Will Noel and Lynn Ransom, University of Pennsylvania and a keynote address on Creative Geometries: Hooking Up Data in the Middle Ages by Professor Mary Carruthers, New York University and All Souls College, Oxford University.

The symposium will continue Friday, November 22 with a Welcome and Opening Remarks by Constantia Constantinou, H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and Director of the Penn Libraries, and Lynn Ransom, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS). There will be numerous other speakers. The symposium will conclude on November 23 at the Kislak Center of Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania.

Registration is $35 ($10 for students with valid student ID). Online registration http://www.library.upenn.edu/about/exhibits-events/ljs-symposium12 closes Thursday, November 21 at noon. Walk-in registrations will be accepted for a fee of $45 ($15 for students with valid student ID) cash only.