Portrait of Archimedes, Scientific Identity: Portraits from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, 2003

In the the first in a series of speakers to address the Institution on the future of libraries, museums and archives in a digital world, the Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Smithsonian Office of the Chief Information Officer present William Noel, Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, "Deciphering Archimedes Palimpsest and Creating Digital Manuscripts."

Noel will lecture on the conservation, imaging and scholarship of the Archimedes Palimpsest, a privately owned codex that has been revealed to contain unique texts not only of Archimedes of Syracuse, but also of Hyperides, an Athenian orator from the fourth century BC, and of Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotles categories. Dr. Noel will discuss the history of the book and the history of the project, its digital presentation on the web, and mention other manuscript imaging projects currently underway at the Walters Art Museum. ~ Liz O'Brien