What many and varied ways have humans used to write over the years? Through a series of workshops on the History of Text Technologies, scheduled over the 2026-2027 academic year, we will investigate this question. We'll look at books from the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, and we'll make some of our own. 

Why do some texts work better in a roll format, while others work better as bound books? On Wednesday, November 4, SIMS Curator for Digital Humanities Dot Porter will lead a workshop where investigate this question. With inspiration from Penn's manuscript collections, we'll put a variety of texts on rolls and on pages, and we'll see which ones work better, and talk about why. Examples in the image are screenshots from this Coffee With A Codex featuring Ethiopian manuscripts.

History of Text Technologies is sponsored by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and will be held in the Vitale II Lab for Digital Humanities & Book History (Van Pelt Library 623).