The document summarizes a presentation given by Alberto Campagnolo on his background in book conservation and current work in digital humanities. It discusses his career path from studying book conservation to his current role researching digital tools and methods for analyzing historical books and manuscripts. The presentation also provides examples of projects at the intersection of conservation and digital humanities, such as digitization efforts of historical materials.

1. From the physical world of Book Conservation
to the magic of Digital Humanities
Alberto Campagnolo
PhD Candidate
Ligatus Research Centre, University of the Arts, London
alberto.campagnolo@gmail.com
@ACampagnolo
UCLDH Seminar, 20th November 2014
Scalpels & magic wands

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1998-2001
Conservation of Library Materials, Spoleto
2000: Trinity College Dublin Bindery
2000: Studio Furlotti, Milano
2000: COO.BE.C., Spoleto
2000: National Museum Wales, Cardiff
2001-2006
Ca’ Foscari University Venice
2002: National Museum Wales, Cardiff
2003: Marciana National Library, Venezia
2003: National Museum Wales, Cardiff
2003-2004: Palace Green Library, Durham
2004-2006: National Museum Wales, Cardiff
2006-2007: Imperial War Museum, London
2007-2009
King’s College London
2007-2008: Guildhall Library, London
2009: St. Catherine’s Monastery Library, Egypt
2008-2010: London Metropolitan Archives, London
2010-today
Ligatus, UAL
2013-today: Vatican Library
Book Conservation
Digital Humanities

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Books as objects
Conservation
Digital Humanities
Conclusions
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Books as objects

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Carpenter's hammer made of iron, wood. British Museum As1896,-.47AN1382010

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Jan Just Witkam, Catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts in the library of the University of Leiden and other collections in the Netherlands, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983, pp. 13-14.

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Douglas Cockerell, Bookbinding, and the Care of Books, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1902, p. 104, fig. 29

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(Pomian 1990)

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Museum items

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Library items

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Library items
Living tools kept to be used as carriers of useful information
(Adams and Barker 1993)

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Library items
Living tools kept to be used as carriers of useful information
Not susceptible to archaeological treatment
(Adams and Barker 1993)

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Library items
Living tools kept to be used as carriers of useful information
Not susceptible to archaeological treatment
Need for an interdisciplinary research approach
(Adams and Barker 1993)

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Model for the history of the book
Communication circuit – Darnton 1983

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Model for the history of the book
Useful tool for social historians
Limiting for the study of the book as a physical object
Communication circuit – Darnton 1983

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Model for the history of the book (material book)
Transmission cycle – Adams and Barker 1993

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Model for the history of the book
Primacy of text
Brings together different disciplines
Common ground for an integrated history of the book
Transmission cycle – Adams and Barker 1993

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Model for the history of the artefact book

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Model for the history of the artefact book
Primacy of the artefact
Bring together different disciplines
Common ground for an integrated history of the book
Artefact examination – Elliot et al. 1982; Pearce 1986
Archaeological and codicological approach

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Model for the history of the artefact book

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Model for the history of the artefact book

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Model for the history of the artefact book

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"Binding for a Qur'an [Iran]" (56.222) – late 16th cent.
In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/56.222. (April 2014)

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Conservation

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CONTENTS
i. fire.
ii. water.
iii. gas and heat.
iv. dust and neglect.
v. ignorance and bigotry.
vi. the bookworm.
vii. other vermin.
viii. bookbinders.
ix. collectors.
x. servants and children.
postscriptum.
conclusion.

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viii.bookbinders (or book conservators). A good binding gives pleasure. — Deadly effects of the “plough” as used by binders. — Not confined to bye-gone times. — Instances of injury. — De Rome, a good binder but a great cropper. — Books “hacked.” — Bad lettering. — Treasures in book-covers. — Books washed, sized, and mended. — “Cases” often preferable to re-binding.
ix.collectors. Bagford the biblioclast. — Illustrations torn from MSS. — Title-pages torn from books. — Rubens, his engraved titles. — Colophons torn out of books. — Lincoln Cathedral. — Dr. Dibdin’s Nosegay. — Theurdanck. — Fragments of MSS. — Some libraries almost useless. — Pepysian. — Teylerian. — Sir Thomas Phillipps.
x.servants and children. Library invaded for the purpose of dusting. — Spring clean. — Dust to be got rid of. — Ways of doing so. — Carefulness praised. — Bad nature of certain books — Metal clasps and rivets. — How to dust. — Children often injure books. — Examples. — Story of boys in a country library.

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The Nag Hammadi Codices.
13 leather-bound single-quire papyrus volumes discovered by Egyptian farmers in 1945.
Dated mid-fourth century A.D.
©Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, CA, USA

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The Nag Hammadi Codices.
Gnostic texts.
©Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, CA, USA

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The Nag Hammadi Codices.
Reconstruction of the binding based on evidence left after restoration (Szirmai 1999).

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Compendio delle historie del regno di Napoli
composto da messer Pandolfo Collenucio iurisconsulto in Pesaro,
Venezia, per Michele I Tramezzino, 1541 Biblioteca Diocesana B. Lucia Broccadelli di Narni (TR) AR 3 V 332

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Carpenter's hammer made of iron, wood. British Museum As1896,-.47AN1382010

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Cima da Conegliano, Conegliano Altarpiece,
tempera on panel transferred on canvas, ca. 1492

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The Stari Most ("Old Bridge"), Mostar,16th century.
©Aga Khan College at MIT

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The Stari Most ("Old Bridge"), Mostar – bombed 1993.

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The Stari Most ("Old Bridge"), Mostar – collapsed 1993.

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The Stari Most built new, in the same form, Mostar – collapsed 2004.

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Conservation

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Scriptors

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Codicological integrity

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Artefacts, Conservation,
and

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Miracles

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Miracles

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Miracles

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Great Parchment Book Project
Text encoding
Computer science
Conservation

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http://www.greatparchmentbook.org/

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http://www.greatparchmentbook.org/

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http://reality.cs.ucl.ac.uk/projects/gpb/

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Great Parchment Book Project

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Great Parchment Book Project

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Codicological integrity

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http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/bge/cl0054

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation

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http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/collation http://digitalgalen.net/
digital Galen Syriac palimpsest
private library
Vatican library

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Conclusions

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Model for the history of the artefact book

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Model for the history of the artefact book
Books (as objects) as silent witnesses
to be read and interpreted

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Conservation

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Conservation
+
Digital Humanities

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Conservation
+
Digital Humanities

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Talk to book conservators…

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…and let your children play with the books!
THE BOOKBINDER’S.
The children have called in to see the bookbinder’s shop, and are looking at a map, which he has varnished for them. Arthur is telling his little sister he thinks he should like to be a bookbinder, it seems such a nice business.
(Oscar Pletsch, Child-Land: Picture-Pages For The Little Ones, London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1873)

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 a.campagnolo1@arts.ac.uk  alberto.campagnolo@gmail.com www.linkedin.com/in/acampagnolo @ACampagnolo
Selected bibliography
http://bit.ly/117geeT