Date and Time

The Board Meeting will be held on Zoom on December 9 at 4 pm CET.

Agenda

  1. Welcome
  2. Deciding on a minute taker
  3. Minutes last Annual Board Meeting
  4. Agenda and potential addenda
  5. Year in Review: Activities 2025
    1. Workshop with Peter Stokes
    2. Saga Conference
  6. Quo vadis, Network?
    1. Frequency of Meetings, Possibility of Meeting in Person
    2. What Do We Want and/or Need from this Network?
  7. Workshops, Events, Seminars: Plans? Wishes?
  8. Tasks and Responsibilities
  9. Misc

Minutes

Attendants: Madita Knöpfle, Eline Elmiger, William Duba, Tarrin Wills, Beeke Stegmann, Guðrún Laufey Guðmundsdóttir, Nora Kauffeldt, Juliane Tiemann, Svenja Walkenhorst, Balduin Landolt

1. Welcome

Madita Knöpfle opens the Annual Board Meeting and welcomes all participants.

2. Deciding on a minute taker

Eline Elmiger volunteers to take the minutes.

3. Minutes last Annual Board Meeting

Minutes of the 2024 board meeting are approved, the group thanks William for last year’s minutes.

4. Agenda and potential addenda

No additions were proposed.

5. Year in Review: Activities 2025

Madita informs the group that Sven has left academia and thereby the network.

1. Workshop with Peter Stokes

Balduin: Very interesting, would have wished for a larger audience; timely topic (AI); interesting discussions. Especially the idea of using generative AI to create synthetic manuscript data for training models has been shown to work well in practice. But Peter talked also about a broader range of use for AI, machine learning and manuscripts.

Tarrin: Found the workshop highly interesting.

2. Saga Conference

Tarrin: Session well attended, interesting discussions; fulfilled its purpose of showcasing digital approaches to non-DH scholars, but the focus was not always where we wanted it to be.

Beeke: Very positive feedback; reached many people who were impressed and interested, we covered a lot.

Guðrún Laufey: Asked if interested audience members had reached out; QR code was provided, but no one has reached out yet. It was good that the round table went from basic to very specific.

6. Quo vadis, Network?

Both points (frequency of meetings and what do we want/need from the network) were discussed together.

Beeke informs the group about a new Digital Network Center in Iceland, who have almost weekly or bi-weekly talks, usually online:

Interest in future talks from:

  • Cassidy Croci (network analysis)
  • Trausti (Handritaskuggsjá; harvesting data from handrit.is: https://skuggsja.arnastofnun.is/)
  • Manuscripta.se team (Alexandra Petrulevich, Patrik Granholm)
  • Swedish manuscript initiatives, as Sweden is currently underrepresented in the network.

Discussion of machine learning, HTR, and statistical methods. Critical reflections on LLMs and the “black box” problem. Interest in locally trained or institutional LLMs.

Members reaffirm interest in continuing the network. Balduin: Limited time but wishes for more regular meetings; someone should coordinate. Svenja: Volunteers to initiate regular meetings; has more capacity next year. Tarrin: Would appreciate informal monthly coffee meetings to share experiences and examples; more formal events can be organised by the members that are interested. Juliane: Supports regular meetings (monthly or bimonthly) and proposes an automated calendar series.

Regarding meeting in person: general agreement to revisit the question once capacity and funding are clearer. Members should inquire about funding possibilities at their universities.

7. Workshops, Events, Seminars

William reports on upcoming events:

  • 3-4 February (Fribourg): Linking data & digitization in medieval manuscripts (with Digital Scriptorium, e-codices NL etc.).
  • 1-3 July: Fragmentarium collaboration with Canada on developing methodology for working with liturgical fragments.
  • Summer schools with Peter Fornaro and Tobias Hodel.
  • Second week of September: Doctoral school in digital methods.

Beeke: Notes upcoming event: Menota (and MUFI) 25-year anniversary in Reykjavík on 10 September 2026, could maybe organize something for network members.

Svenja: Handschriftencensus will look at German manuscripts in Scandinavia and might do an event (possibly in Bergen). Historikertag will have a group focusing on digital methods (sometime in September 2026).

8. Tasks and Responsibilities

  1. AG “meeting-in-person” (find out: who is interested, who has funding, who wants to organise): Nora
  2. Monthly meet-up: Svenja
  3. Menota: Beeke
  4. Swedish digital infrastructure: Guðrún Laufey (update later in 2026)
  5. Codicum: Juliane
  6. Leeds 2027: Svenja
  7. Chair (annual board meeting): Madita
  8. Website: Balduin, Eline (reviewer)
  9. Mailing list: Eline, Balduin
  10. Talk on Handritaskuggsjá by Trausti: Beeke

9. Miscellaneous

Nora notes that the Saga Conference round table will feature in the NOFO conference report. Svenja will send a Nuudle for a regular coffee meeting time slot.

Madita closes the meeting and thanks all participants.