Minnims, Ligatures, and Algorithms: Problems and Questions Surrounding Digital Paleography

This meeting of the CMRS Paleography Working Group, led by James Harr (NCSU), will consider innovations and challenges in digital paleography. Medieval script poses a problem, not only for the traditional scholar, but also for the digital paleographer. Programs and tools that extend beyond simple optical character recognition (OCR) with the capability to read and decipher Medieval script is difficult, but certainly not impossible. This session will demonstrate several tools in digital paleography, noting their successes and limitations, and discuss the obstacles the field faces.

James Harr, is a first-year PhD student in Communications, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at North Carolina State University. His doctoral research will look at open source machine learning applications and handwriting recognition for use on Medieval texts. He holds a Master's degree in Medieval English Literature from the University of Leeds where he focused on Old English texts and liturgical drama.

For further details, please see the brief description on our website at https://sites.duke.edu/paleographyworkinggroup/. You can keep up to date on the working group's meetings via our website or contact Dr. Jessica Hines (jessica.hines@duke.edu) to be added to the mailing list.