Rachel Di Cresce
Project Librarian
University of Toronto
Jessica Lockhart
Project Manager
University of Toronto
This project briefing will explore The Book and the Silk Roads, an Andrew W. Mellon funded project between the University of Toronto Libraries and Centre for Medieval Studies. The scholarly team seeks to build and support a growing international network of scholars, curators, conservators, and scientists exploring significant developments in writing technologies within a range of contexts, to reimagine the history of the premodern book as an object whose concealed structure contains vital information about its manufacture and thus about the development of book technology. The scholarly context of this project presents unique challenges to technical development as it is dynamic and fluid in its exploration of new fields of study, has the potential to produce large amounts of heterogeneous data, and the need to share and collaborate with people all over the world. In response to this context, the technical work has proceeded following the principles of flexible iterative development, microservices architecture, FAIR data management, and open data standards and technology. The team aims to build tools and workflows which fit seamlessly into existing architecture in the library while also leveraging multidisciplinary expertise from outside the institution to inform every development decision.
