Posted March 5, 2026 by L.P. Coladangelo, DS Catalog Project and Data Manager
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New Blog Post
As Manuscript Data Curation Fellow Kelly Tuttle gets underway with description assistance for DS member institutions, her newest post on the DS Notes and Insights blog discusses Boston Public Library’s MS f. Med 228, a beautifully illustrated copy of Nizami’s Khamsah, highlighting the importance of surfacing manuscripts through enhanced metadata.
Digital Medieval Studies Institute (DMSI) 2026
DMSI 2026 will take place on the campus of Western Michigan University on May 13, 2026, immediately preceding the 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies. The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is presented in cooperation with the Digital Medievalist, the Newberry Library, and the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University. Additional financial support has been provided by the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Michigan University and Western Michigan University Libraries.
Digital Scriptorium is pleased to be presenting a workshop at DMSI 2026:
Manuscript Description and Research in the Digital Ecosystem
L.P. Coladangelo, Digital Scriptorium
Lynn Ransom, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
This workshop will begin with a hands-on encounter with undescribed or underdescribed manuscript materials from the WMU collections. In the morning session, using material clues from the manuscript, instructors will work with participants to identify the manuscript’s physical, scribal, and textual characteristics and create a description of it. In the afternoon, instructors will introduce online tools and finding aids to learn more about the manuscript and others like it, including platforms for provenance research such as the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, to find out where the manuscript came from and where it has been. Participants will then craft a machine-readable version of the newly-made description that will be contributed to WMU’s catalog for upload to the Digital Scriptorium Catalog. By following metadata standards informed by linked data practices, the newly described manuscript will thereby be made discoverable and citable by others. This workshop is geared toward humanities scholars and medievalists who are interested in not only manuscript research but the tools and technologies that lead to new discoveries in digital environments.
To learn more about the workshops, and to register to participate, please follow this link: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/dmsi
Eureka Fund Grant Applications Due
The William G. Noel Eureka Fund Committee, in partnership with Digital Scriptorium, is currently accepting proposals from DS member institutions for inaugural grants from the fund. Grant proposal applications are due no later than March 16, 2026. Please note that grant applications must be submitted by and on behalf of DS member institutions. To learn more about Eureka Fund grants and to apply, please follow this link: https://digital-scriptorium.org/support-ds/eureka-fund/eureka-fund-call-for-applications/
Description Assistance Reminder
Thanks to the 2-year NEH-funded grant awarded to DS in late 2025, our Manuscript Data Curation Fellow Kelly Tuttle is on hand to provide metadata creation assistance. This help is currently available to all DS members, and we encourage non-member institutions to contact us about membership if they are interested in taking advantage of the metadata creation program. We are especially keen to assist under-resourced institutions who may lack the cataloging expertise to create their own metadata. Faculty members, scholars, and researchers are also encouraged to pass along this information to colleagues at institutions they believe may benefit from this manuscript description assistance program through DS membership.
If you would like to participate in the program or learn more about manuscript metadata creation through DS, please message us at [email protected].