Imaging Services Blog

The British Library has published advice on the use of white gloves. Essentially, we recommend that it is preferable to handle manuscripts with clean dry hands. Wearing cotton gloves to hold or turn the pages of a book or manuscript actually reduces manual dexterity, and increases the likelihood of causing damage. Gloves also have a tendency to transfer dirt to the object being consulted, and to dislodge pigments or inks from the surface of pages.

This short video demonstrates how not to handle a manuscript wearing white gloves (or, indeed, gloves of any colour).

Harvard’s History of Photography Timeline offers a view into the history of photography through selected photographs in the University’s libraries, museums, and archives. Viewers will be able to explore some of the highlights of Harvard’s rich photographic holdings, which document an encyclopedic range of subjects and include the work of noted nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographers. While not intended as a comprehensive view of the history of the medium, the History of Photography Timeline will continue to expand through contributions from Harvard curators and collections managers.

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Dumbarton Oaks Acquires a New Collection of Images

“In the era of disembodied texts on Kindles, it’s easy to forget that books used to be created entirely by hand.¹“

¹Scherer, B. L. (2016, Sep 13). ‘Beyond words: Illuminated manuscripts in boston collections’ review: A trove of beautiful books; in the era of disembodied texts on kindles, it’s easy to forget that books used to be created entirely by hand. Wall Street Journal (Online) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul…

MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture group has an interesting list of projects (#vagueUnderstanding), including ones that allow cameras to see through surfaces and around corners. Ugh.

They claim a goal of “Making the invisible visible–inside our bodies, around us, and beyond–for health, work, and connection”, but I smell military/espionage/law-enforcement applications.

[I wonder when the first museum of privacy will open, and where.]

Reading closed books: https://t.co/7rBdYwShSr

Seeing around corners: https://youtu.be/JWDocXPy-iQ

Stanford professor, Marc Levoy’s, course description:

“An introduction to the scientific, artistic, and computing aspects of digital photography. Topics include lenses and optics, light and sensors, optical effects in nature, perspective and depth of field, sampling and noise, the camera as a computing platform, image processing and editing, and computational photography. We will also survey the history of photography, look at the work of famous photographers, and talk about composing strong photographs.”