EAJS Digital Forum: eScriptorium Tutorials

eScriptorium is an open source platform to automatically transcribe manuscripts, printed works or inscriptions. It is developed by members of the AOrOc laboratory at the EPHE, PSL in Paris France. It works particularly well on documents in Hebrew script, but in principle, eScriptorium is script- and language agnostic: It can be trained to cope with almost any script, language or document. Usually this process involves the creation of a verified data set to train artificial neural networks to adapt to a specific layout type, handwriting and / or printed font. This process is similar to training a cellphone to adapt to your voice / language so that you can dictate SMS.

For more information on eScriptorium, please see the “Digital Humanities Showcase: eScriptorium” report currently available on the EAJS website (link).

We are offering a tutorial for EAJS members and their students on how to use eScriptorium specifically for Hebrew script on Tuesday, 5 April 2022, 1 pm – 5 pm CET. Please sign up here: https://forms.gle/qqzCg6dF8cBo6c9LA?

EAJS Digital jour fixe (Digital Humanities)

The Digital Forum of the EAJS invites all interested to participate in the “EAJS Digtal jour fixe” taking place monthly or bimonthly on Fridays 10-11h30 CET / 9-10h30 BT via zoom. These meetings will be dedicated to the presentation of a tool or method and its wider implications and purposes for projects in Jewish Studies.

1) Avi Shmidman (Bar Ilan / Dicta), “Digital Humanities Tools for Jewish Studies Research: The Dicta Website.” Friday 28 January 2022, 10-11h30 CET

2) Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (EPHE-PSL), “eScriptorium: A Digital Infrastructure for Manual and Automatic Analysis of Manuscripts, Inscriptions and Print.” 25 February 2022, 10-11h30 CET

3) Thomas Kollatz (Akademie der Wissenschaften, Mainz), “(Very) short introduction into Digital Editing with Text Encoding Initiative.” 25 March 2022, 10-11h30 CET

4) Oleksii Chebotarov, “Jews on the Move: Digital Mapping Approaches to the History of Jewish Migration.” 27 May 2022, 10-11h30 CET

Please sign up here to receive a zoom link.

The Digital Forum of the EAJS