News
New online database
The Genizah Research Unit was one of the first institutions to make images of Genizah manuscripts available online, through the GOLD database. GOLD now looks increasingly flaky, however, as time and technology have moved on, and it is aimed to retire it next year, once the University Library's new Digital Library comes into action.
In the meantime, however, images and descriptions of Cambridge Genizah manuscripts can be accessed either through the Friedberg Genizah Project online database, or through the digital repository of Cambridge University, DSpace@Cambridge. We have just begun making items from the Genizah publicly accessible through DSpace. Currently there are 1000 items from the T-S Additional Series available to search and view, with thousands more due to go up in the early new year. Searchable through Google or the UL's Library Search beta, each item on DSpace can be viewed as a JPG and a full description is available as a DublinCore or TEI record. The JPG images may be downloaded for personal research use. Permission is not required to use an image in a PowerPoint presentation for teaching purposes or lecture handouts provided that it is correctly credited as Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and that the material is not subsequently distributed either in print or electronically. For permission to reproduce items in print and/or to obtain higher-resolution images, please contact Imaging Services.
Specialist imaging of fragments soon available
The Library's Imaging Services Department has begun to invest in multi-spectrum imaging equipment to allow it to capture high quality digital images in, initially, ultraviolet wavelengths (UVa), to be followed later by infrared imaging. Although infrared appears to be of limited use as far as Genizah manuscripts are concerned, ultraviolet photography can aid greatly in the reading of stained or faded fragments, as in the example given below. This service will soon be available. For more information please email Imaging Services.
Detail of an ultraviolet image of T-S Misc.35.87, large parts of which are badly faded and illegible to the naked eye
Standard photography of the same part of the manuscript.
New publication later this year
A collection of papers on Genizah Studies by leading scholars in the field, will be published later this year by Brill:
‘From a Sacred Source’: Genizah Studies in honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif, edited by B. M. Outhwaite & S. Bhayro
The papers are the fruits of a conference held in Cambridge in 2007 marking Professor Stefan Reif's retirement and celebrating his 33 years of achievement in the field of Genizah Studies. Subjects range from Maimonides' legal interpretation of the power of attorney to the medieval paper and textile industry in the Land of Israel. Contributors: Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman, Zohar Amar, Haggai Ben-Shammai, Gideon Bohak, Mark Cohen, Abraham David, Uri Ehrlich, Miriam Frenkel, Mordechai Friedman, Azriel Gorski, Rebecca Jefferson, Geoffrey Khan, Izhar Neumann, the late Friedrich Niessen, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Michael Rand, Marina Rustow, Shaul Shaked, Avihai Shivtiel, Esther-Miriam Wagner and Joseph Yahalom.
