Suchergebnisse

The fascinating yet still underexplored world of manuscripts hailing from Southeast Asia, including the nation-state of Indonesia, has received some impetus in recent years, thanks to the new appreciation for this written heritage by state and non-state actors both within and without the country. Traditionally perceived as a dry (and hardly scientific or 'intellectual') subject that was the preserve of a small circle of specialist librarians, codicology (and Asian codicology in particular) has become a vibrant discipline, with several teams of scholars and projects worldwide focusing on manuscripts as objects, as well as on 'manuscript cultures'. These projects and approaches duly recognise the role of manuscripts (and not onlytexts) as prime carriers of cultural and civilisational values across time and space, as well as their relevance for the culture and identity of contemporary societies. This essay reviews some recent publications on Indonesian manuscripts catering to researchers as well as the wider public.

Manuscript libraries, the items collected in them, their location, and something of their history can be classified as follows (previous work on this subject was described in Lütfü Eroğiu's "Istanbul Kütüphaneleri"):
1.Ministry of Culture and Tourism's libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Libraries.2.Ministry of Culture and Tourism's libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Monuments and Museums.3.University libraries.4.Public libraries.5.Libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Foundations.6.Private libraries, such as those associated with banks or newspapers.

Abstract
This article argues that in the fifteenth century, many manuscripts were physically recycled, and that this recycling is symptomatic of interest in sustaining books. In the case studies explored here, unwanted or old texts became valued for the physical qualities of the parchment on which they were written. Case studies of recycled manuscripts, including flyleaves, pastedowns, limp covers and palimpsests, are presented to argue that many books were made (and re-made) in sustainable ways. Although recycled books, and bits of books, have been mentioned fleetingly by many scholars, and studied as treasures or for the scraps of text they preserve, this article focuses particularly on the practices and processes of medieval book recycling. Research into recycled books thus adds to the history of material culture, to the history of the book, and to debates about the sustainability and durability of media today: we can learn from the practices and processes of the past.

AbstractThe trajectory of the Hassan II Prize for Manuscripts, a government initiative begun in the late 1960s to locate rare manuscripts in private collections, is a potent example of the role Arabic-script manuscript culture played in post-colonial nation-building in Morocco. This article presents the history of the Hassan II Prize for Manuscripts, demonstrating how Moroccan bureaucrats used the recovery of archival documents and especially historic manuscripts in Arabic-script, as part of a multi-faceted nation-building project after European colonization. Their project included connecting historic manuscripts to Moroccan identity and territorial sovereignty. It contends that the ramifications of linking these policies with documentary heritage would affect what came to be discovered, valorized, and preserved in the "national collection" and subsequently, what histories could be written.