The Book Historian’s Digital Toolkit

This 5-day course introduces a variety of digital methods and tools for book history research, in addition to a historical survey of digitisation and electronic books. The primary purpose of this introduction is to give students a view of the landscape of digital research in book history, including bibliographic data and content management systems, data visualisation, IIIF (the leading standard for image sharing and annotation in libraries and archives), computer vision, and digital collation. The emphasis will be placed on thinking computationally, and experimenting with digital tools to enhance book historical research questions and information management.

This course is intended for humanities scholars of all levels, librarians, archivists, and curators. No specialist prior knowledge of bibliography or digital humanities is required. No prior experience with a programming language will be expected. We expect students to come from a range of backgrounds and with varying degrees of technical proficiencies. Participants on London Rare Books School courses are normally expected to hold an undergraduate degree. For more information, please contact the Director, Andrew Nash. 
An introductory reading list and most course materials will be released the week before the module begins.