Publication and Research Roles for Libraries Using Spectral Imaging Data

Todd Grappone
Associate University Librarian for Digital Initiatives and Information Technology
University of California, Los Angeles

Stephen Davison
Head, UCLA Digital Library Program
University of California, Los Angeles

This presentation will discuss the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Library’s role in the David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project and partnership with the Early Manuscript Electronic Library (EMEL) to support spectral imaging of palimpsests at the St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. Spectral imaging projects require complex international collaboration between technicians, scholars and librarians to uncover erased or deteriorated texts. Once initial spectral imaging is complete, a combination of manual and automated processing, drawing on the knowledge of both technicians and scholars to inform a feedback loop of processing and reprocessing of images is necessary to build an archive of spectral images and metadata that will meet a variety of needs, including scholarly work (e.g. creating editions of texts, paleographic and codicological description), public access (e.g. generating images decipherable and viewable by students and the general public), and preservation. UCLA is working with partners from both the Livingstone and St. Catherine’s projects to define workflow and standards for the spectral data archives produced by these projects, including intellectual property rights, metadata standards and controlled vocabularies, and structuring spectral image data archives for both access and preservation. Future activities include the development of tools for the dynamic generation of derivative views from spectral images, and the extension of these techniques to other hidden or deteriorating texts.

http://livingstone.library.ucla.edu
http://livingstone.library.ucla.edu/livingstone_archive/

Presentation