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Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#11

Post by goto11 »

WalterBright wrote: post #4

> and plan to collaborate with the Arnamagnæan Institute to digitize the newly discovered volume. This just makes me want to scream. When finding an irreplaceable book, the first thing to do is take a photo of each page with a phone. It'll take a whole hour or two. Then there's a backup.

The book was discovered inside a library of irreplaceable books at the University of Copenhagen. The library contains some of the most important books and writings for Scandinavian history. They know how to handle old books and have access to professional equipment designed for digitizing old and fragile manuscript.

Here is a bit more detail: https://manuscript.ku.dk/news/a-new-discovery-in-the-arnamag...

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#12

Post by WalterBright »

goto11 wrote: post #11
WalterBright wrote: post #4

> and plan to collaborate with the Arnamagnæan Institute to digitize the newly discovered volume. This just makes me want to scream. When finding an irreplaceable book, the first thing to do is take a photo of each page with a phone. It'll take a whole hour or two. Then there's a backup.

The book was discovered inside a library of irreplaceable books at the University of Copenhagen. The library contains some of the most important books and writings for Scandinavian history. They know how to handle old books and have access to professional equipment designed for digitizing old and fragile manuscript. Here is a bit more detail: https://manuscript.ku.dk/news/a-new-discovery-in-the-arnamag...

And it still isn't digitized and at risk of loss while everyone wrings their hands about budgets and schedules and perfection and what an abomination a phone picture would be :-)

BTW, I watched a segment on TV on the Vatican Library where they turned pages on ancient books by - turning the pages! For gosh sakes, these are not Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#13

Post by goto11 »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
goto11 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book was discovered inside a library of irreplaceable books at the University of Copenhagen. The library contains some of the most important books and writings for Scandinavian history. They know how to handle old books and have access to professional equipment designed for digitizing old and fragile manuscript. Here is a bit more detail: https://manuscript.ku.dk/news/a-new-discovery-in-the-arnamag...

And it still isn't digitized and at risk of loss while everyone wrings their hands about budgets and schedules and perfection and what an abomination a phone picture would be :-) BTW, I watched a segment on TV on the Vatican Library where they turned pages on ancient books by - turning the pages! For gosh sakes, these are not Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

You can see some of their digitized manuscripts here: https://manuscript.ku.dk/about/digitised_manuscripts/ They seem to know how to digitize a book.

Do you have any legitimate reason to believe the University of Copenhagen "wrings their hands" and need a HN-reader with a smartphone to save them?

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#14

Post by HarrisReid »

goto11 wrote: post #13
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it still isn't digitized and at risk of loss while everyone wrings their hands about budgets and schedules and perfection and what an abomination a phone picture would be :-) BTW, I watched a segment on TV on the Vatican Library where they turned pages on ancient books by - turning the pages! For gosh sakes, these are not Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

You can see some of their digitized manuscripts here: https://manuscript.ku.dk/about/digitised_manuscripts/ They seem to know how to digitize a book. Do you have any legitimate reason to believe the University of Copenhagen "wrings their hands" and need a HN-reader with a smartphone to save them?

https://anyforsoft.com/blog/what-digital-experience-platform...

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#15

Post by tokai »

WalterBright wrote: post #4

> and plan to collaborate with the Arnamagnæan Institute to digitize the newly discovered volume. This just makes me want to scream. When finding an irreplaceable book, the first thing to do is take a photo of each page with a phone. It'll take a whole hour or two. Then there's a backup.

>This just makes me want to scream

You really shouldn't become so worked up over something you clearly don't understand. I can assure you that the book is in good professional hands.

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#16

Post by WalterBright »

goto11 wrote: post #13
WalterBright wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it still isn't digitized and at risk of loss while everyone wrings their hands about budgets and schedules and perfection and what an abomination a phone picture would be :-) BTW, I watched a segment on TV on the Vatican Library where they turned pages on ancient books by - turning the pages! For gosh sakes, these are not Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

You can see some of their digitized manuscripts here: https://manuscript.ku.dk/about/digitised_manuscripts/ They seem to know how to digitize a book. Do you have any legitimate reason to believe the University of Copenhagen "wrings their hands" and need a HN-reader with a smartphone to save them?

Have they scanned the book yet? Nope. Case closed.

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#17

Post by WalterBright »

tokai wrote: post #15
WalterBright wrote: post #4

> and plan to collaborate with the Arnamagnæan Institute to digitize the newly discovered volume. This just makes me want to scream. When finding an irreplaceable book, the first thing to do is take a photo of each page with a phone. It'll take a whole hour or two. Then there's a backup.

>This just makes me want to scream You really shouldn't become so worked up over something you clearly don't understand. I can assure you that the book is in good professional hands.

Many archives have lost their books due to fire, war, flood and theft. Texts are lost all the time because no copies exist.

What don't I understand?

There's the HP archives that burned down, for one.

For another, in a vault at the bottom of the World Trade Center, there was an archive of thousands of unpublished Kennedy photos. No copies were made of those photos. You'd think it would be safe in that vault. Nope. All gone.

Unless the book is a suspected palimpsest, a phone photo will preserve the text more than adequately, and would take an hour or two to accomplish. Then the risk of total loss is averted, and they can relax and do their proper scan whenever budget and schedule allows.

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#18

Post by treeman79 »

WalterBright wrote: post #9
pavlov wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a world of difference between “phone snaps of pages in library lighting” and a proper digitization of an antique book.

Not if your goal is to capture the text. I've used a phone for this purpose many times with nothing more than room lighting. Don't believe me? Try it yourself, right now! Remember that the HP archives burned down while waiting for a "proper digitization". Oops.

This person gets stuff done!

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#19

Post by Tor3 »

WalterBright wrote: post #9
pavlov wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a world of difference between “phone snaps of pages in library lighting” and a proper digitization of an antique book.

Not if your goal is to capture the text. I've used a phone for this purpose many times with nothing more than room lighting. Don't believe me? Try it yourself, right now! Remember that the HP archives burned down while waiting for a "proper digitization". Oops.

- The HP archives had been moved to a building without any protection. Before that the archives used to be in special vaults with fire-protection. (ref. spectrum.ieee.org)

- There doesn't appear to have been plans to digitize them, not at a large scale anyway - these were papers and notes and documents in a wide variety of formats, tricky to digitize unless you have a professional organization to do so (e.g. a museum working with old documents).

- In short, the HP archives seem to have been simply collected and stored, and not safely (after the archive was moved to an "ordinary" building).

Re: Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive (2019)

#20

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

WalterBright wrote: post #17
tokai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This just makes me want to scream You really shouldn't become so worked up over something you clearly don't understand. I can assure you that the book is in good professional hands.

Many archives have lost their books due to fire, war, flood and theft. Texts are lost all the time because no copies exist. What don't I understand? There's the HP archives that burned down, for one. For another, in a vault at the bottom of the World Trade Center, there was an archive of thousands of unpublished Kennedy photos. No copies were made of those photos. You'd think it would be safe in that vault. Nope. All…

You're assuming the worst without knowing the situation. It's not my area at all but

- 650 year old books may be fragile, both in paper (or whatever) and in the bindings.

- old books/codices/etc often displayed under low light conditions because light damages them. A phone light may not be healthy.

- how does it feel when someone clearly with less knowledge than you pops up to tell you where you're going wrong with D?

Don't assume people are being stupid and you're the only smart one.

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