As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts
As a ‘book scientist’ I work with microscopes, imaging technologies and AI to preserve ancient texts
Publish Date: 2026-04-05 08:33:00
Source Domain: theconversation.com
Cultural heritage is constantly under threat. In recent years, we’ve witnessed the destruction of museums, archives and libraries around the world — from wildfires in California to bombing in Gaza and wars in Ukraine and Iran.
Meanwhile, book scientists are working tirelessly with an array of technologies — including microscopes, multispectral imaging and artificial intelligence — to recover, understand and preserve many valuable ancient texts.
This approach transforms what we can know about the past, as we learn how old books were made and how they change over time. It also helps us to care for fragile collections at a moment when climate change and mass digitization are reshaping cultural heritage work.
I work in this space as a PhD student at the University of Toronto as part of the Old Books New Science Lab and the Matrix Functionalization and Phenotyping Lab. I collaborate with conservators and heritage scientists to study parchment manuscripts and imaging-based approaches to preservation.
From papyrus roll to palm leaf
Across cultures and millennia, “books” have taken many forms, each shaped by local materials and technologies.
A book can be a papyrus roll, a palm leaf manuscript or a clay tablet.
Books can be made from animal skins, stretched thin to provide a writing surface. They can include pigments ground from minerals and plants, or metallic inks that corrode the surface beneath them.
Three book formats on display: a pothi (palm leaf manuscript), a Ge’ez prayer book in codex format, and papyrus fragments in glass.
(C. Nguyen, courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library), Author provided (no reuse)
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