manuscrise

Manuscrise is a term used in library and information science to describe contemporary challenges and opportunities surrounding manuscript culture in the digital age. It signals concerns about preserving, accessing, and authenticating physical manuscripts while leveraging digital surrogates to broaden scholarly reach.

Etymology: Manuscrise is a neologism formed from the words manuscript and crisis. The term appears in discussions of preservation, digitization, and access to manuscripts within archives, libraries, and museums; it is not universally standardized and may be used differently by scholars.

Scope: The concept covers historical manuscripts—from medieval codices to modern manuscript collections—and their physical care, provenance, context, and scholarly interpretation. It also encompasses the creation of digital copies, metadata, rights management, and the long-term viability of digital formats.

Drivers and challenges: Key drivers include aging physical materials, limited physical access, and growing demand for digital access. Challenges include deterioration, environmental risks, incomplete provenance, legal and rights constraints, and the need for robust digitization workflows.

Digital practice: Digitization projects produce surrogates that require standards, preservation planning, and ongoing maintenance. Important considerations include metadata quality, file formats, permanent identifiers, OCR accuracy, and interoperability via standards such as IIIF, METS, and PREMIS.

Impact: Manuscrise discussions influence research methods in the digital humanities, archival practice, and public access to cultural heritage. They emphasize collaboration among librarians, conservators, scholars, and technologists, and they highlight ethical issues and digital equity.

See also: Manuscript studies, Digital humanities, Archival science, Digitization, Digital preservation.