second century pop-up
The Secrets of Judas – The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel by James M. Robinson (Editor of the Nag Hammadi Library) .depicts the symbiosis of scholarship and the surviving codices. The surviving part is especially dramatic and vividly narrated. A must read for book conservators.
name of the rose tour
The
digital library of St Gallen is a wonderful tour, especially for lurkers allured by bookbindings.
“The purpose of the ìCodices Electronici Sangallensesî (Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen) is to provide access to the medieval codices in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen by creating a virtual library. The project will begin with a two-year pilot to digitally reproduce a selection of the finest illuminated codices at such a high resolution that researchers cannot only work with the manuscripts but also perform detailed (art historical or otherwise) analyses of the miniatures in the codices. Codex metadata (primarily scholarly descriptions of the codices) will be managed in a database system and referenced with the digitalised items through various access mechanisms. All these elements will constitute a single long-term tool for codex research that can potentially incorporate all the information on the individual codices. The tool can act as a partial substitute for direct examinations of the irreplaceable originals, thereby preserving them. At the same time, an intuitive, appealing internet presentation will communicate the medieval codex culture to a wider audience.”
still taking off
E-book readers, like comic book readers, are a wonderful enclave.
Read about their adventures at
Mobile Reader.
“The first prize went to Timothy Yeoh for his concept of “Turnover”: an e-book reader where the screen can be rotated to the back, and while you rotate it, it refreshes the next page, thereby stimulating a whole book with only two pages. Touchscreen capability lets you bend the corner to toggle bookmarks on or off, with a bookmark symbol on the page for easy reference when scrolling through.” (if page 2 could draw on the verso of page 1 with page 3 standing by behind .it just might work.)
Check out the other hand-held e-reading concepts at
PlasticLogic.