Posted June 9, 2025 by L.P. Coladangelo, DS Catalog Project and Data Manager
To get regular updates about DS, please subscribe to our email list by clicking here.
NEH Grant Award
Digital Scriptorium (through the University of Pennsylvania) has been awarded a Preservation and Access grant by the National Endowment of the Humanities to expand our work to make the DS Catalog a national union catalog of manuscript objects in North American collections. The two-year grant is intended, in part, to fund a graduate fellow to create basic metadata for undescribed and underdescribed manuscript objects and to increase the number of manuscripts discoverable in the DS Catalog. We are looking forward to sharing more details and the anticipated expansion of our work made possible by this grant award in the coming months.
DS at ICMS Recap
DS Catalog Project and Data Manager L.P. Coladangelo represented Digital Scriptorium at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. L.P. was able to meet with and introduce the DS Catalog to a large number of scholars, medievalists, librarians, artisans, and general attendees. Of note were the overwhelming sentiments of positive feedback from scholars impressed with the range and scope of the DS Catalog, the ease of use, and the ability to search many disparate collections in one place. Scholars and artists interested in access to representations of original medieval materials as both objects of study and as creative influences were also impressed with the number of images available to them.
Moreover, every exhibit visitor was excited and grateful to know that the DS Catalog and its data is made available by member institutions committed to free and open access. In a world of paywalled and siloed resources, many scholars and enthusiasts were deeply impressed by DS and its engagement with open data practices. They were glad that the DS Catalog remains free of charge to users and continues to be generously supported by DS members.
As examples of this important work, these Bluesky posts (here and here) highlight how the DS Catalog puts scholars in contact with manuscripts of interest. It was a delightful experience for us at DS to show members of our research community that there were indeed many different types of manuscripts well represented in the DS Catalog.