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Paul Dingman

was the Project Manager for Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) at the Folger Shakespeare Library. He earned a PhD in History with a concentration in medieval/early modern Europe and is especially interested in cultural history and the digital humanities. Paul also worked in the field of information technology for years before pursuing his doctorate.
The EMMO Conference on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age
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The EMMO Conference on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age

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Author
Paul Dingman Sarah Powell

On May 18th & 19th, 2017, EMMO held the Early Modern Manuscripts Online: New Directions in Teaching and Research conference at the Folger, in collaboration with the Folger Institute. This conference was a culmination of the project’s initial three-year phase, funded by a…

Okay, but what does it mean, or how do you regularize an early modern transcription?
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Okay, but what does it mean, or how do you regularize an early modern transcription?

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Author
Paul Dingman

As one reader guessed, the phrase shown in last week’s Crocodile mystery image is in secretary hand, i.e., a type of handwritten script widely used in the British Isles (and elsewhere in Europe) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As transcribed…

Announcing EMMO's Beta Launch
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Announcing EMMO's Beta Launch

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Author
Heather Wolfe Paul Dingman Sarah Powell

To kick off the new year at Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), the EMMO team (Paul Dingman, Mike Poston, Sarah Powell, Caitlin Rizzo & Heather Wolfe, with additional thanks to Rebecca Niles) is thrilled to announce the launch of our…

A Preview of What the New EMMO Website Will Offer
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A Preview of What the New EMMO Website Will Offer

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Author
Paul Dingman

Manuscripts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are going digital with added features for users! The launch of a beta website for Early Modern Manuscripts Online next month will provide encoded transcriptions to accompany manuscript images and metadata. The number of transcriptions…

Honing transcriptions with algorithms and acumen
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Honing transcriptions with algorithms and acumen

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Author
Paul Dingman

A question I often hear from paleographers who contribute transcriptions to Early Modern Manuscripts Online (or EMMO) is: What are you going to do with all these transcriptions? It’s a good question—central to the whole project, actually—but it’s also a complicated one. The…

Unlocking An Early Modern Account Book
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Unlocking An Early Modern Account Book

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Author
Paul Dingman

The answer to last week’s Crocodile mystery is, as some of you guessed, £135 15s 0d (or 135 pounds, 15 shillings). This amount is a snippet of one entry made on a page in Folger MS V.b.308, the account book of…

EMMO announces the launch of Shakespeare's World
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EMMO announces the launch of Shakespeare's World

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Author
Paul Dingman Sarah Powell

There are thousands of manuscripts sitting quietly amongst the Folger’s ever-growing collection which Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) aims to transcribe. Earlier this year EMMO collaborated with Zooniverse, a hugely successful online crowd-sourcing platform, so that people all over the…

Fall Round-up for Early Modern Manuscripts Online
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Fall Round-up for Early Modern Manuscripts Online

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Author
Paul Dingman Sarah Powell

Over the past few months, EMMO has been busy with several first-ever activities connected to transcribing manuscripts at the Folger. In August, we transcribed excerpts from over twenty four manuscripts currently exhibited in the Age of Lawyers Exhibition (running until…

Arithmetic is the Art of Computation
poem about arithmetic
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Arithmetic is the Art of Computation

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Author
Paul Dingman Sarah Powell

Yes, the answer to last week’s Crocodile mystery is as obvious as it seemed. We were looking for a number which unites the table, the fractions, and the superfluous but artful penmanship. Answer: 60, of course! What we are actually…

Tagging manuscripts: how much is too much?
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Tagging manuscripts: how much is too much?

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Author
Paul Dingman

When it comes to the subject of tagging or encoding manuscript transcriptions in XML (extensible markup language) for Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), two important questions are how much should we tag and when should we do it. With thousands…

Golden quills and paleography skills
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Golden quills and paleography skills

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Author
Paul Dingman

In my last post about EMMO’s progress, I briefly mentioned Practical Paleography or “PracPaleo,” our intentionally relaxed, no-registration-required introduction to transcribing secretary hand for readers and staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library. This time around, I thought it would be…

EMMO: advancing and expanding
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EMMO: advancing and expanding

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Author
Paul Dingman

During the last few months, the Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) project has been gathering strength and reaching farther both inside the Folger Shakespeare Library and outside to individuals and organizations. These actions have translated into the passing of several…

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