Especially the Parchments

It was August of 1974. We had just moved to Miami Springs, Florida, where on july 1 I took up my duties as president of Miami Christian College, having left a most enviable position at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a bewildered band of faculty friends. The man I hired to build shelving around the room that would become my study had finished his work and I was in the process of sorting and shelving some 4,000 books. In the midst of the effort, my wife came into the room, watched for a while silently, and finally asked the question, You really love your books, don\u27t you? That total is now down to about 3,000, but the sentiment has not changed. We of the dinosaur age admit that computers have taken over the world but too many of us know a shining piece of hardware stuffed with miraculous software can never take the place of a library. When some people move to a new town, they search out the best restaurants, perhaps a health club, parks, pools, churches and malls. Not I. First, show me the library

Characterization and digital restauration of XIV-XV centuries written parchments by means of non-destructive techniques. Three case studies

Parchment is the primary writing medium of the majority of documents with cultural importance. Unfortunately, this material suffers of several mechanisms of degradation that affect its chemical-physical structure and the readability of text. Due to the unique and delicate character of these objects, the use of nondestructive techniques is mandatory. In this work, three partially degraded handwritten parchments dating back to the XIV-XV centuries were analyzed by means of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, µ-ATR Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and reflectance and UV-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. 'e elemental and molecular results provided the identification of the inks, pigments, and superficial treatments. In particular, all manuscripts have been written with iron gall inks, while the capital letters have been realized with cinnabar and azurite. Furthermore, multispectral UV fluorescence imaging and multispectral VIS-NIR imaging proved to be a good approach for the digital restoration of manuscripts that suffer from the loss of inked areas or from the presence of brown spotting. Indeed, using ultraviolet radiation and collecting the images at different spectral ranges is possible to enhance the readability of the text, while by illuminating with visible light and by collecting the images at longer wavelengths, the hiding effect of brown spots can be attenuated

Characterization and digital restauration of XIV-XV centuries written parchments by means of non-destructive techniques. Three case studies

Parchment is the primary writing medium of the majority of documents with cultural importance. Unfortunately, this material suffers of several mechanisms of degradation that affect its chemical-physical structure and the readability of text. Due to the unique and delicate character of these objects, the use of nondestructive techniques is mandatory. In this work, three partially degraded handwritten parchments dating back to the XIV-XV centuries were analyzed by means of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, µ-ATR Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and reflectance and UV-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. 'e elemental and molecular results provided the identification of the inks, pigments, and superficial treatments. In particular, all manuscripts have been written with iron gall inks, while the capital letters have been realized with cinnabar and azurite. Furthermore, multispectral UV fluorescence imaging and multispectral VIS-NIR imaging proved to be a good approach for the digital restoration of manuscripts that suffer from the loss of inked areas or from the presence of brown spotting. Indeed, using ultraviolet radiation and collecting the images at different spectral ranges is possible to enhance the readability of the text, while by illuminating with visible light and by collecting the images at longer wavelengths, the hiding effect of brown spots can be attenuated

Colonial Trauma in Márquez and Rushdie’s Magical Realism

Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children are hallmarks of the genre of magical realism. A typically problematic genre in terms of classification, this article looks at magical realism from a Freudian perspective, with particular reference to Freud’s notion of The Uncanny. Freud’s notion of uncanniness deals in displacement; it is uncomfortable, haunting and cyclical. The dominant presence of such uncanny effects in magical realist literature, I argue, reveals the haunting presence of colonial trauma within the current postcolonial psyche

Nanotechnologies for cultural heritage: nanodiamond for conservation of papers and parchments

In this paper we report some tests regarding the feasibility of nanodiamond to act as a cleaning/consolidation agent of papers and parchments. We carried out a series of treatments aiming to develop innovative approaches for de-acidification, cleaning and consolidation. Dispersions of nanodiamond have been used as de-acidification agents of ancient papers showing the ability to sensibly reduce the acidity of the paper without using any alkaline base. Similar dispersions have been used for cleaning processes and nanodiamond demonstrated an outstanding capability to clean ancient papers and parchments avoiding the use of any solvent and surfactant. Moreover interesting results were obtained by using nanodiamond as consolidation agent. In particular, artificial aging by UV exposition was appreciably contrasted when samples were preliminarily submitted to a treatment by nanodiamond. This outcome was demonstrated in papers and parchments by Raman spectroscopy analyses that evidenced the property of nanodiamond to be an excellent UV-scavenge

Logos, Biblios & Bibliotheke: Christian Influences In Library Development

The influence of the Christian faith in the growth and development of libraries begins with the fundamental character of Yahweh, God of the Bible. By outlining the characteristics of Yahweh, we begin to understand the conceptual framework on which libraries have come to exist as intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social institutions. Given the limitations of space and format, I am confining my remarks to thematic possibilities, ideas that may merit further exploration. Essential to Yahweh\u27s character is that he acts in a powerful manner by speaking things into existence. He acts in a loving manner by creating individual human beings in his own image in order to have fellowship with them. Yahweh\u27s actions of power and love are essential to his nature. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness

Secondary ion mass spectrometry, a powerful tool for revealing ink formulations and animal skins in medieval manuscripts

XRD diffractograms, ToF-SIMS MS and ATR-FTIR spectrometry spectra, recorded on inks on historical parchments (pigments, inked areas). ToF-SIMS and ATR-FTIR spectra from non-inked areas of the parchments. See the read-me file for complete description of the files and structure, and the main manuscript for the methodology. The PCA algorithm code is also provided. Article abstract : Book production by medieval scriptoria have gained growing interest in recent studies. In this context, identifying ink compositions and parchment animal species from illuminated manuscripts is of great importance. Here, we introduce time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) as a non-invasive tool to identify both inks and animal skins in manuscripts, at the same time. For this purpose, both positive and negative ion spectra in inked and non-inked areas were recorded. Chemical compositions of pigments (decoration) or black inks (text) were determined by searching for characteristic ion mass peaks. Animal skins were identified by data processing of raw ToF-SIMS spectra using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). In illuminated manuscripts from 15th c. to 16th c., malachite (green), azurite (blue), cinnabar (red) inorganic pigments, as well as iron-gall black ink, were identified. Carbon black and indigo (blue) organic pigments were also identified. Animal skins were identified in modern parchments of known animal species by a two-steps PCA procedure. We believe the proposed method will find extensive application in material studies of medieval manuscripts, as it is non-invasive, highly sensitive and able to identify both inks and animal skins at the same time, even from traces of pigments and tiny scanned areas.In-house PCA algorithm requires python. ToF-SIMS raw data require SurfaceLab software. ATR-FTIR raw data (.0) can be read with free-licence software (Fityk). XRD diffractograms are directly exported in .txt from .xyz files. Funding provided by: Namur Institute of Structured Matter, University of NamurCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100023393Award Number:Analytical and data processing methods can be found in the manuscript