Graduate thesis poster for Maters in Library and Information Sciences with a focus on rare books and born digital items.

1. “The authority of written documents...does not depend upon their
pristine and unaltered condition. Quite the contrary - it is the capacity of
the material documents to record change that makes them such
believable witnesses.” Johanna Drucker∆
An interrogation of the non-textual properties of text based artifacts
Jessica Rogers – final poster presentation for MLS degree from The University of Iowa’s School of Library and Information Science, Fall 2015.
Analog
“An emergent property, materiality depends on how the work mobilizes its
resources as a physical artifact as well as the user’s interactions with the work and
the interpretive strategies she develops - strategies that include physical
manipulations as well as conceptual frameworks...materiality emerges from the
dynamic interplay between the richness of a physically robust world and human
intelligence as it crafts this physicality to create meaning.” N. Katherine Hayles∆
Para-textual Properties of Analog Text-Based
Artifacts1
1. substrate
medium on with content will be
printed or inscribed
paper, parchment,
papyrus
2. image
text or image;
content ‘carried’ on top of the
substrate
printing, script, ink,
graphite, woodcut,
etc.
3. commodity
artifact as conceptual and
physical entity of its component
parts, what the user interacts
with
a book, scroll,
telegram, illuminated
manuscript, diary,
etc.
1. physical
medium on which signs are
inscribed
flux reversals recorded
on magnetic tape, disk
sectors
2. logical
data as it is recognized and
interpreted by particular
processes
binary composition of a
Word .DOC file
3. conceptual
the object we deal with in the
real world
such as a digital
photograph as it appears
prima facie on the
screen
“Between tracks 23 and 33 we find evidence that at
one time this disk had at least two other games
stored on it...Like a palimpsest, or books laced with
marginalia and marks from the readers who have
previously owned them...and poured over by
historians for reading and writing, a floppy disk
image can also reveal the hand of the reader or
user.” – Matthew Kirschenbaum∆
Para-textual Properties of Digital Text-Based
Artifacts2
Extracting Meaning from Para-textual Elements
Open Access Tools
“The capacity to reveal hidden and lost text is of
immense value to cultural heritage institutions,
providing the ability to confirm provenance,
recover lost information, and allow researchers to
confirm or disprove theories of the techniques of
artists, underpaintings, overwritten text, and non
destructive identification of inks and colorants.”
France, Emery, Toth3
“Convergences between information
technology data and information management
in advanced imaging systems illustrate
common challenges and opportunities across
cultural heritage institutions. Preservation
professionals , researchers, and scholars in
libraries, archives, and museums, share
common needs for access to the original object,
research images, integrated data, and
information structures and systems.” France,
Emery, Toth3
Conclusions and Future Use
Using a simple UV light on this
11th century manuscript allowed
for a more accurate identification
of the scribal hand. I was able to
correctly identify this hand as a
German Protogothic Bookhand
(GPB). Thus, the region and date
of the creation of the manuscript
could be more specifically
pinpointed.
Digital
1Gary Frost. American Institute of Conservation mentorship. Fall 2013 - Spring 2014.
2Thibodeau, Kenneth. “Overview of Technological Approaches to Digital Preservation and Challenges
in Coming Years.” Council on Library and Information Resources. 2001. Web. Oct. 2015.
∆ Kirschenbaum, Matthew. Mechanisms : new media and the forensic imagination. Cambridge,
Mass. : MIT Press, 2008.
3France, Fenella G., Doug Emery, and Michael B. Toth. “The Convergence of Information
Technology, Data and Management in a Library Imaging Program.” Library Quarterly 80:1 (January
2010): 33–59.
Both retroReveal.org and BitCurator are available to the public at no
cost. RetroReveal, hosted by the University of Utah, uses “web based
image processing algorithms designed to help people discover
hidden content” in analog paper-based artifacts. BitCurator, funded
by several NEH grants, is a package of digital forensic tools adapted
for use in libraries, archives, and museums, for the preservation and
recovery of born-digital items.