Stephen Shearon's Report from Watermark Conference--Ongoing (fwd)

[Virginia Tech]

Stephen Shearon sent this report out to a couple of the musicology lists
and I thought it was worth sharing with the list:

>Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 15:29:37 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Stephen M. Shearon" <sshearon@frank.mtsu.edu>
>To: dan.mosser
>Subject: Report from Watermark Conference--Ongoing (fwd)
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>
>
>Dan, here's the message I sent earlier.  For future conferences, you
>might also consider contacting the IAML-List (International Association
>of Music Libraries).  Steve
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 12:00:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: Stephen M. Shearon <sshearon@frank.mtsu.edu>
>To: amslist <amslist@ucdavis.edu>, MLA List <mla-l@iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu>
>Subject: Report from Watermark Conference--Ongoing
>
>
>AMS and MLA-Listers,
>
>I am writing to share with you some of the results of The First
>International Conference on the History, Function, and Study of
>Watermarks, which is approaching its conclusion even as I write.  (I came
>home early.)  This conference, sponsored by The Center for Textual &
>Editorial Studies at Virginia Tech, is an interdisciplinary event
>oriented primarily to bibliographical specialists (given the sponsors'
>presence in the Virginia Tech English Department), but art historians and
>musicologists have been a definite, interesting presence there.  I will also
>share information about an amazing new technology for watermark study
>that comes out of Parma, Italy.  You will find the conference program at the
>end of this message.
>
>The participating musicologists were Dexter Edge, Steven Zohn, Ulrich
>Konrad, Paul Laird (and Greta Jean Olson in absentia), Jeremy Smith, and
>yours truly.  The basic messages:
>
>1. The consensus of those musicologists present is that we are generally
>far behind our colleagues who are bibliographical specialists
>(particularly those studying English literature, poetry, and documents)
>and art historians in the application of these methods to musical
>sources.  Some (not all) of those on the cutting edge in our field (i.e.,
>Beethoven, Mozart, Bach studies) would have been comfortably received,
>but the rest of us have a lot to learn.
>
>2. Musicologists have something to offer.  Clearly, some of us are
>collecting information about paper (including watermarks) in areas that
>hitherto have not been studied:  Southern Italy, the Iberian peninsula, and
>Central and South America, for examples (i.e., parts of the former Spanish
>Empire).  While for us, just collecting the watermarks is a
>groundbreaking achievement, our colleagues in other fields will be unable
>to use this information unless we meet their standards while doing so.
>This is especially true as they move to establish databases of watermark
>images (already underway).  The standards really have yet to be established.
>
>3. The use of rastra data in source studies is generally unknown to our
>colleagues in other fields.  It seemed to be eye-opening to those present
>at this conference.  As we use rastra data to establish dates and
>connections among hands and sources, other fields will find this to be an
>excellent resource, if we can make it available to them.
>
>4. The company Fotoscientifica, of Parma, Italy has developed a new
>digital watermark detection system that may very well establish a new
>standard in paper studies.  They call it "the very high definition
>direct digital technique."  They take a picture of the leaf containing
>the watermark with a digital camera having a maximum resolution of
>6000x7520 non-interpolated pixels, ensuring ultra-high definition.  (I
>understand all this only generally; I'm copying from their information
>booklet.)  They can then digitally remove all the images on the page,
>leaving an exact reproduction of the paper on which it was printed,
>including the watermark.  They can then manipulate the images (stored
>in a database) to reconstruct the original sheet of paper!  The images
>are stored on a CD-ROM.
>
>Daniela Moschini (music librarian at the Biblioteca Palatina) presented
>this technology for Fotoscientifica through an interpreter.  If I
>understood dottoressa Moschini correctly, they intend soon to build a
>database of watermark images from the Vivaldi manuscripts in both the
>Dresden (Sa:chsische Landesbibliothek) and Parma collections.  Dott.
>Moschini gave me additional booklets showing this new system to take to
>the AMS meeting in Baltimore.  I will make them available there.  NOTE:
>This system is currently licensed only in Europe and so is not
>available in the United States.
>
>Finally, I thought Ulrich Conrad did a fine job of explaining to the
>conference attendees the history and use of paper studies in the field of
>musicology.
>
>Best.
>
>Stephen Shearon
>Middle Tennessee State University
>
>========================================================================
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:46:32 -0400
From: Dan Mosser <dan.mosser@vt.edu>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <watermarks@ebbs.english.vt.edu>
>Subject: Conference Program
>
>Program for The First International Conference on the History, Function, &
>Study of Watermarks
>
>Thursday, 10 October
>
>(All sessions will be held in the Wilson Room)
>
>                1:30-2 pm       Opening Remarks and Information
>
>                          2-3 pm        Session 1
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Ted-Larry Pebworth (University of Michigan-Dearborn), "Towards a
>Taxonomy of Watermarks"
>
>        R. Carter Hailey (University of Virginia), "Watermark Study in
>Mixed Paper Quartos:  The Example of Robert Crowley's Piers Plowman (1550)"
>
>                          3:-3:30 pm    Break
>
>                          3:30-5 pm     Session 2
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Stephen Shearon (Middle Tennessee State University), "Watermarks
>and Rastra in Neapolitan Music Manuscripts, 1700-1825"
>
>        Dexter Edge (London), "The Study of Eighteenth-Century Music
>Paper:  Problems and Prospects"
>
>        Steven Zohn, "Watermarks at Dresden and Their Implications for
>Telemann Chronology"
>
>                      7:30-8:30 pm      Keynote Paper I
>
>        Paul Needham (Sotheby's, New York), "Caxton's Paper Supplies"
>
>        Reception to follow
>
>=46riday, 11 October
>
>8-9 am  Continental Breakfast (full breakfast available in the Regency
>Dining Room)
>
>                          9-10 am       Session 3
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Nancy Ash (Philadelphia Museum of Art) and Shelley Fletcher
>(National Gallery of Art), "Watermarks in Rembrandt's Prints"
>
>        Brett Charbeneau (Williamsburg Imprints Program), "Practical
>Watermark Image Management in the Field"
>
>                          10-10:30 am   Break
>
>                       10:30:-11:30 am  Session 4
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Laetitia Yeandle (Folger Shakespeare Library), "Watermarks as
>Evidence for Dating and Authenticity in Ben Franklin and John Donne"
>
>        Leonard Rapport, "Watermark Evidence for the Dating of Madison's
>Notes to the 1787 Constitutional Convention"
>
>                  11:30 am-1 pm Lunch & Announcements
>
>                     1-2 pm             Keynote Paper II
>
>        Prof. Dr. Ulrich Konrad (currently at the University of
>Wu:rzburg; formerly of the Department of Musicology at the Hochschule
>fu:r Musik, Freiburg i.B.),  "The Use of Watermarks in Musicology"
>
>                       2-2:30 pm        Break
>
>                    2:30-3:30 pm        Session 5
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Celia A. Fryer (Presbyterian College), "Spanish and Italian
>Watermarks in Colonial Guatemalen Books"
>
>        Paul R. Laird (University of Kansas) and Greta Jean Olson (Chinese
>University of Hong Kong), "Watermarks in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Music
>Manuscripts"
>
>                         3:30-4 pm      Break
>
>                         4-5 pm Session 6
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Jeremy Smith (currently The University of North Dakota; formerly
>UC-Santa Barbara), "Dating the Hidden Editions of Thomas East with Paper
>Evidence"
>
>        James E. May (Penn State-DuBois), "The Uniformity of Paperstocks in
>Mid-Eighteenth-Century Books and Pamphlets, Particularly Dublin Printing"
>
>        Daniela Moschini (Biblioteca Palatina, Parma, Italy;
>representing Fotoscientifica, Parma) and Conor Fahy (University College,
>London), "La Marca d'Acqua: The Watermarks Digital Sensing System"
>
>Saturday, 12 October
>
>                8:00-9:00 am    Continental Breakfast
>
>                      9-10:00 am        Session 7
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        Carol Ann Eggert (National Gallery of Art), "Phosphorescence
>Watermark Imaging"
>
>        Deborah A. Barclift & Michael Skalka (National Gallery of Art),
>"The Rembrandt Project on CD-ROM" [poster/demo session]
>
>        Ruby Reid Thompson (University of Nottingham Library),
>"Watermarks and Other Physical Evidence from the Portland Literary
>Manuscripts"
>
>                      10:00-10:45 am    Break
>
>                      10:45-11:45 am    Session 8
>
>Chair   TBA
>
>        David L. Gants (University of Virginia), "Dylux and Digital
>Cameras:  Paper Studies at the End of the Century"
>
>        Robert W. Allison (Bates College), "An Automated WWW Search Tool
>for Papers and Watermarks: The Archive of Papers and Watermarks in Greek
>Manuscripts"
>
>        Daniel W. Mosser & Ernest W. Sullivan, II (Virginia Tech), "The
>Thomas L. Gravell Watermark Archive"
>
>        Thomas L. Gravell, "Demonstration of the Dylux Method"
>
>                         11:45 am       Lunch
>
>                           1:30-9 pm
>
>
>Optional: Bus trip down Blue Ridge Parkway to Mabry Mill and wine tasting
>and dinner at the Chateau Morrisette
>
>
>                                ...Dan Mosser <dmosser@vt.edu>
>                                     VOICE:  (540) 231-7797
>                                       FAX:  (540) 231-5692
>                                        [NOTE NEW AREA CODE]
>                                             =20
>

                                ...Dan Mosser <dmosser@vt.edu>
                                     VOICE:  (540) 231-7797
                                       FAX:  (540) 231-5692
                                        [NOTE NEW AREA CODE]