12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (EST): Welcome & introductions, overview of Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, and presentation on Columbia’s Judaica collections.
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (EST): Time for transcribing, classifying, etc. During this time, we’ll leave the live stream running for any questions.
Welcome to Scribes of the Cairo Geniza!
Now is the chance to work with others to unlock the secrets of one of the greatest archives of the Middle Ages. Hidden for centuries in the Geniza chamber of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in old Cairo, over 350,000 fragments have yet to be fully deciphered. Participate in the recovery of unknown chapters of the history and culture of medieval Jews by sorting and transcribing easy-to-read fragments in Hebrew and Arabic!
Penn Libraries and Columbia University Libraries invite you to help classify and transcribe this unique collection of historic materials through the crowdsourcing platform, Zooniverse! In this webinar, Emily Esten, project manager for Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, will provide instruction on how to classify and transcribe the fragments on the site. Michelle Chesner, Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies at Columbia University Libraries, will present some of the manuscripts included in the project that are from Columbia’s Judaica collection.
We are limiting this event to the first 100 participants, but as long as you are registered, you can send you a link to the recorded session (the following day).
This event is co-hosted by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and the Digital Scholarship Unit at Columbia University Libraries; the Digital Scholarship unit and Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at Penn Libraries.
