A one-day Workshop held
at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
15 January 1994
In the Series of Research Group Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
[First published on 13 October 2015 from our Archives, with updates]
This workshop focused upon optical imaging techniques as aids for manuscript studies. It considered developments in imaging through photographic and computerised methods, as it provided a forum for information and feedback about techniques of image processing, both existing and planned: applications, capabilities, limitations, desiderata, and future potential. Participants included experts in manuscript studies, conservation, photography, imaging aids, computing, radio astronomy, engineering, forensics and medical imaging.
Our First Event Report in Booklet Form
A ‘Preliminary Report’ of the proceedings of the Workshop was prepared and printed by the Research Group as a small-format Booklet soon after the event.
Following the move of our principal base to the United States later that year, not to the destination expected, but to Princeton, we thought that the Booklet had disappeared. Describing the event for our upgraded website (in October 2015), we had to rely on the corrected proof-copy, transcribed here. More recently, from another section of our Archives, the printed copy of the Booklet has emerged, and we publish it as well in downloadable form.
It represents the first of our printed Booklets for any of our events. It followed the model of our Annual Reports for the Research Project, composed principally by Mildred Budny and circulated in printed copies both individually and as a collected group, as described among our Publications). Those reports summarised our Seminars and Workshops, along with accounts of our other activities and the research work itself.
It also followed the model of the Exhibition Booklets for the exhibitions at the Parker Library of “Canterbury at Corpus” (1991) and “Matthew Parker in Cambridge” (1993), although those are illustrated with our photographs from Parker Library materials. Both were printed in-house and circulated at the events, as well as afterward. Both were reprinted, but in quarto format, in the Old English Newsletter, 24:4 (Summer 1991), Appendix A (= pages A-1–A-7) and 27:1 (Fall 1993), Apendix A (A-1–A-8); the latter issue is available online in the OEN Archives, but not yet the former. In their original design, these Exhibition Booklets emanated in A3 format as a group of single sheets stapled twice along the left-hand side; the 1991 Exhibition Booklet, with text and photographs by Mildred Budny, was also prepared as an A5 booklet of folded and nested leaves with the pages of text and image reduced to half-size in photocopying. Similar layout in small-format booklets came to pertain also to the Annual Reports. Such forms of in-house design, layout, and publication by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence prepared precedents, and customs, for the Workshop Booklet.
Then, after the Research Project was completed and the Research Group moved to the New World, our scholarly Events mainly focused upon Symposia for some years. As our Annual Series of Symposia on “The Transmission of the Bible” gathered momentum, their Programs, with brief Abstracts of the Papers, grew from single or double-sided pages (1995, 1996, and 1997), and took the form of short booklets, as here:
Those folded and unstapled booklets comprise either a double-sided 4-page unit (1 quarto sheet folded in half as a bifolium) or a menu-like tryptich (1 legal-size sheet folded in three) with wings to open and close at will. Each case was issued in printed form at the event and circulated afterward also in printed form. In this respect, the Symposium Booklets differ from the 1994 Imaging Seminar Report, which emerged after the event — indeed like the Annual Reports of our events overall (1990–1994). The 1994 “Preliminary Report” takes the form of 6 double-sided sheets folded into 12 pages as a small-format booklet (A5), although it also circulated as full-page sheets (A3).
A longer booklet accompanied our 2002 Colloquium at the British Museum. That case stands within The New Series of our Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia.
Within the New Series, the Booklets have become a regular, but not necessarily invariable, feature, while illustrations enter their pages more and more, through generous donations of images for the purposes. Our experience in designing, laying out, and typesetting our Illustrated Bulletin ShelfLife (2006–) prepared the way for the illustrated Booklets as a way of life.
Each case was issued in printed form at the event and circulated afterward also in printed form, until we acquired a website and the site could accommodate them. Our tradition is to “launch” the publication of the booklet in its printed form at the event itself. Then we may post it on the website and circulate it elsewhere.
More recent, and illustrated, examples of the booklets employ our copyright font Bembino. Issued in print at the event, as is the custom, they now appear on our site in downloadable form:
See also our list of Publications. The “Imaging” Booklet joins their company.
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In its Style Manifesto, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence defines the principles of its approach to publications. Foremost is the principle that form and content must be appropriate for function and audience.
