ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLICATION

[Posted on 27 October 2014, with updates]

[Update: Issue 2 has now appeared. Volume 2, Number 1 for Winter 2022-2023. See below.]

We launch the first issue of ShelfMarks.  This occasional Newsletter joins our other Publications, both online and in print.  It aims to report activities, work-in-progress, research results, discoveries, questions, reviews, and news.

Opening Page of ‘ShelfMarks’ 1

Our Newsletter opens a new page in communications by and with the Research Group.  The issues will appear in alternate forms, flexibly according with the variable methods of current transmission, by email, on screens, and in print.

The printed version of ShelfMarks displays our own font and design layout, set out page by page in full.  (8 pages in the first issue.)  Its PDF form preserves the layout.  The EMAIL version, circulated [formerly] via MailChimp, provides excerpts and highlights, with links in further directions, set out in web form.  (Plus some images of its own.)

To distinguish between these forms, as an aid to bibliographers, book-lovers, and all of our friends, we think of the e-version as a form of ShelfTags for ShelfMarks.  The e-version provides a summary, with illustrations, of what is happening in the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

ShelfMarks (Print)
ISSN 2377-4096

ShelfMarks (Online)
ISSN 2377-4118

We invite you to explore further, and to join the conversation.

The Newsletter [Issue 1] is edited by Mildred Budny and Jim Tigwell.

[Update:  Issue 2 is edited by Mildred Budny, with the Editorial Team.]

Please send items, announcements, suggestions for book reviews, and conference or exhibition listings to the Editors:  [email protected].
You may subscribe here:  Subscribe.

*****

Contents of the First Issue: Volume 1, Number 1 (Autumn 2014)

Photography © Mildred Budny

“The Director’s Cut”

Highlights of our Anniversary Year, described by our Director

2014 marks the anniversary of two landmark events for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence:

1) 15 years as a nonprofit educational corporation, officially recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization based in Princeton, New Jersey

2) 25 years as an international scholarly society, founded in the United Kingdom as part of a collaborative research project (1987–1994) at Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge

Events and publications during the year (including this Issue) offer occasions to celebrate and advance our activities.

“The Bouquet List:  A Gathering of Books”

The first in a series of reviews by Mildred Budny

The title alludes to the widespread medieval genre of florilegia (“gatherings of flowers”).

The books under consideration in this issue:

Publications from the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University
with contributions by some of our Officers, Associates, and Volunteers

• Patronage:  Power & Agency in Medieval Art (Princeton, 2013, ISBN 978-0-98375537-4-2)
• Index of Christian Art Online Publications:  The Digital World of Art History, I (2012) and II (2013)

Under consideration from the Digital World:

• Corsair (I.4),
• Oxford Art Online (II.4), and
• Kornbluth Photography (II.4).

The report by our Associate Genevra Kornbluth on “Kornbluth Photography:  From Private Research to Private Archive” (II.4) offers the opportunity, with Genevra’s permission, to include some images in our first Newsletter from her rich photographic archive, showing high-resolution inscribed materials in walrus ivory, rock crystal, and ivory (on pages 3–4 and 7).

Publications by our RGME Associate, the late Malcolm B. Parkes (1930–2013)

• M. B. Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes:  A Closer Look at Scribes (Ashgate Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7546-6337-9)
• M. B. Parkes, Pages from the Past:  Medieval Writing Skills and Manuscript Books (Ashgate Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4094-3896-9)

“The Power of Manuscripts in Video Games”

An essay by Jim Tigwell.  The written word still has power, even in digital worlds.

Under examination:

Zork (1997-1999), Elder Scrolls (1994), Dragon Age:  Origins (2009), Alan Wake (2010), World of Warcraft (2004), and Elder Scrolls V:  Skyrim (2011)

“Links to Explore”

Directions for web-references in the form of endnotes

[Update:
Over time, and with changes in the names or structures of organizations or services, some links in that list have become unusable.  They affect, for example, the name and website for the Index of Christian Art (now the Index of Medieval Art) at Princeton University (see now Index of Medieval Art), no longer with the online publication of the Index series on Digital Art History; and the Mailing List service Mailchimp (no longer free, and too expensive, now as the Marketing Service Mailchimp).  We work to remedy the latter gap.  Watch this Space.]

*****

Opening Page of ‘ShelfMarks’ 1

Printed Version of ShelfMarks

The PDF version of this issue is available here.

PLEASE NOTE: If you click to open the PDF in your browser, it may strip out the links. We suggest that you download the PDF and open it in Acrobat Reader to activate the hyperlinks.

Email Version of ShelfMarks

The EMAIL version, as a form of ShelfTags for ShelfMarks, with some extra images, is available here.

Remember, you may Subscribe here.

Please Contact us with your questions, suggestions, and comments.

*****