Teaching manuscripts from a digital library on the web

Abstract

A new cache of digital images of manuscripts from the collections of the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University provided the impetus for a course in the autumn of 1998 on 'Medieval Manuscripts as Primary Sources' (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium/Class). The course was an experiment to see whether it would be possible for very different institutions to teach collaboratively, sharing faculty and library resources through the medium of the web and distance learning technologies. Thanks to a Mellon grant, thousands of selected leaves of manuscripts had been photographed and scanned to be made available on the Internet as the 'Digital Scriptorium' (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Scriptorium). The team-taught distance-learning course allowed a different instructor each week to introduce his or her speciality to students at both universities through the screens of video-conferencing, with manuscript images accessed locally directly through the Internet. The multiple dimensions of the course complicate assessment. The new interdisciplinary course was taught by instructors from many departments and from two institutions separated by a continent and connected by a web site. Classes were attended by graduate students and often by several of the participating faculty. A treasure of images of manuscripts was newly available in and beyond the classroom through a database interface still in a preliminary stage. Participants used a variety of technological tools in the two classrooms for projection and for transcontinental communication, together with a broad spectrum of computers and printers available outside the classroom in libraries, computer laboratories, offices, and students' homes. Nearly all students who responded to a questionnaire at the end of the course concluded that they would take the class again for its content and for the opportunity to be taught by specialists, but many voiced suggestions and criticisms. This review describes the organization of the course, the Digital Scriptorium of the Mellon grant, classroom technology at both institutions, library resources, and the resources and function of the class web site. Data from the questionnaire completed by students and faculty at the end of the course contributed to a preliminary assessment of the impact of a web-based digital library inside and outside the classroom on teaching and learning.