Dot Porter
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leoba.bsky.social
Dot Porter
@leoba.bsky.social
4.2K followers 1.9K following 670 posts
Medievalist, digital humanist, and wannabe booklicker.
I'm here to post memes and yell about manuscripts.
See also @sims-mss.bsky.social
I speak for myself and not for my employer
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leoba.bsky.social
I'm happy with this score.
October 25, 2025 at 4:26 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Collation models I build using VCEditor, they're visual reconstructions of quire structure (showing the leaves and how they connect and are arranged), I map contents and diagrams/illustrations to leaves, and link digitized images to leaves, too. It's a compact, detailed view of of a book.
Screenshot of a quire from a book of hours in VCEditor
September 24, 2025 at 12:44 PM
leoba.bsky.social
If you see this share a skeleton.
Two mini skeletons sitting on a cardboard box. One sits on the other's lap and they appear to be flirting.
June 13, 2025 at 3:12 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Proof of perkiness!
Photo of an orange and white cat drinking from a large cup set in a bathtub (aka tub waters)
June 10, 2025 at 11:42 AM
leoba.bsky.social
Rosie update! Thanks for all your tips. I ended up taking her to the vet. She got a painkiller injection and subcutaneous fluids (which one of you also recommended ❤️). They seemed to do the trick - she was chugging the fountain last night 😍 Hopefully she's good to go 🤞
Photo of Rose (a white and orange cat) lounging in her bungalow
June 8, 2025 at 2:34 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Rosie got oral surgery earlier this week and now she has trouble drinking water. She wants it but it seems difficult for her to find a good angle, both cups and fountains. Could a guinea pig bottle work? Does anyone have experience and suggestions with something like this?
Photo of an orange and white cat sitting in a bathtub next to a cup full of water that she is unable to drink. She is very sad.
June 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Day 4 of Digital Codicology (Rare Book School L-160) we started with fragments (I boosted @lisafdavis.bsky.social's Digital Fragmentology course), moved on to video & 3D imaging, then data visualization & physicalization, and now we're team-building a quire! Only one more day to go 😭
Photo of the Beauvais Missal on Fragmentarium Students deciding how to video & 3D model their books Photo of a chart showing the comparative contents of several books of hours (the gold line down the center shows the location of the hours of the virgin) Photo of a sheet of parchment with ruling lines drawn. We're ready to write!
June 5, 2025 at 8:45 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Days 2 & 3 of Digital Codicology (Rare Book School L-160)... more materiality (we bound our printed sheets and made illuminated initials!), talked about cataloging, IIIF, VisColl, DM, HTR, and we toured our digitization lab (SCETI) and took photos of our own. WHEW! Two more days to go!
Students in Digital Codicology class sitting around the table, making their illuminated initials. Photo of a beautiful illuminated initial S (made by a student) Photo of a bound version of the sheet we printed at Common Press on Monday Photo made by a microscope camera, it's a close-up of a little face in a root in LJS 419, a 15th century Italian herbal. The little face looks very grumpy.
June 5, 2025 at 12:38 AM
leoba.bsky.social
First day of Digital Codicology (Rare Book School L-160)!! We looked at books and then took a step towards making one (at the Common Press). Tomorrow we'll talk about cataloging and make a quire 😍
People looking at manuscripts People looking at manuscript with unrolled parchment roll in the foreground Person laying type in an early printing press Woman holding up a printed page
June 2, 2025 at 10:22 PM
leoba.bsky.social
The first word of the poem in the only surviving medieval manuscript copy isn't MONSTRUM, it's NOSTRUM. Monstrum has been written in the margin by a later hand (the zine is tiny so I also took a photo of Bridget's slide so you can see it better)
Photo of a manuscript page printed into a little zine, about 2/3 down the page the poem starts, you can clearly see a capital N in red, the first letter of Nostrum; the note in the margin next to it is the word Monstrum written in a later hand in black ink A photo of Bridget's slide showing a close-up of the manuscript, with NOSTRUM as the main text and Monstrum written in a later hand in the margin.
May 30, 2025 at 2:32 PM
leoba.bsky.social
several examples of translations, editions, and a translation of the poem "In puellam hermaphroditum," all of which have the first word of the poem as MONSTRUM (rendering the first two words, Monstrum feminei, to be something like "monstrous woman") The problem is that - also shown in the zine -
A photo of the zine showing a 1640s transcription of the poem "In puellam hermaphroditum" from the medieval manuscript, with the first word of the poem being clearly written as "monstrum" (second word "feminei") Photo of an early edition of the poem "In puellam hermaphroditum" with the first word being clearly written as "monstrum" Photo of an early edition of the poem "In puellam hermaphroditum" with the first word being written as "monstrum" 1961 translation of the poem "In puellam hermaphroditum" with the first line reading "Two-organed monster of the female sex"
May 30, 2025 at 2:32 PM
leoba.bsky.social
I used the Electric Zine Maker to lay out 16 pages with mostly photos of books, a front cover, and an introduction from Bridget. I printed front and back, folded, used a pamphlet stitch to bind them, then cut the edges.

The zine contains...
Photo of a hand holding a needle, with a pile of zines and scraps of thread behind. Photo of a zine opened to the center, where the thread is tied in the gutter Introduction by Bridget Whearty: This zine, made in collaboration with Dot Porter, binds together some of the media at the heart of my keynote, which traces how one short--extremely queer--North African Latin poem has been moved across media, and how modern editorial "best practices" have made the poem more homophobic and intersexphobic than its medieval original. By now, it is beyond trite to celebrate digitization as a democratizing force, or to praise it for opening up previously inaccessible collections to new readers, and new modes of engagement. Yet, I urgently feel that this commonplace still can hold remarkable truth--depending on the kind of work we do with these digital resources. To the digital imaging specialists across continents and decades whose labors have given me free access to digital copies of media spanning more than a 1000 years: you make it possible for queer, intersex, and trans researchers to gather the real evidence of the LGBTQIA+ Middle Ages in unprecedented, and I believe truly paradigm-shifting, ways. For this, and for everything, you have my enduring gratitude. Bridget Whearty, May 2025
May 30, 2025 at 2:32 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Spending the day working with Bridget Whearty to finalize the zine handout for her keynote + pop-up exhibit for the Society for Textual Scholarship Conference this week (and remembering fondly @literaturegeek.bsky.social's zine workshop at the BookLab symposium last week)
photo of a zine cover, the background is a manuscript leaf that is made translucent. Over top in large writing: "Lessons from the 'Bi-Sexed Girl' of BNF 10318" Bridget Whearty STS 2025: Textual Remediations Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts Philadelphia, May 28-30
May 27, 2025 at 5:18 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Exciting personal milestone reached: as of this morning I've lost 100 lbs since January 2024 🎉🎉🎉

I'm not interested in sharing my body publicly so instead here is a photo of my cat, Rosie
A white and orange splotchy cat sleeps on the cushion of a sofa, her back leg extended, posing like one of your French girls
May 26, 2025 at 11:19 AM
leoba.bsky.social
Last week I hosted the Philadelphia Calligraphers Society (PCS) in the Vitale II Book+Digital lab, they had a great time looking at some of our more attractive manuscripts (list here: drive.google.com/file/d/1TtcE...)
Two people looking at manuscripts Four people looking at manuscripts
May 17, 2025 at 1:06 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Prepping for my workshop "Make your own Illuminated Initial" next week at the BookLab Symposium sponsored by @skeuomorphpress.org and I am EXCITED
Photo of a stack of handmade paper printed with outlines of large initial letters screenshot of a slide that reads: Make your own Illuminated Initial, Dot Porter, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Building Book Labs Symposium, May 20, 2025. The large initials in the title are colored Red and Blue. All the text is in a medieval gothic font. Screenshot of a slide that reads: Header: Why a workshop on making illuminated initials? To provide insight into historical bookmaking practices To illustrate the labor involved in the work To present a good entry point for the study of medieval manuscripts. Because… Illumination is neat and pretty! To give students a fun, creative method for learning, and they have something to take away and share with friends
May 17, 2025 at 11:56 AM
leoba.bsky.social
If you (like me) won't be able to make it in person, don't despair! Instead click on the link and scroll down to the digital exhibition and walk through the exhibit virtually
Photo of an exhibit case containing several unfolded calendar manuscripts overlaid with green dots
May 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
leoba.bsky.social
When it rains it pours! "Not Just “Can We?” but “Should We?” and “Why?”: Understanding Digital Manuscripts as (Big) Data," which I co-wrote with my brilliant colleague and friend Bridget Whearty, published in Digital Philology's special issue on Big Data and Manuscript Studies is out now!
Screenshot of the opening of the article "Not Just "Can We?" but "Should We?" and "Why?"" Full text of content pasted here: Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures a magnifying glass search icon Johns Hopkins University Press Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 2025 Johns Hopkins University Press Article HTML icon Viewed PDF icon Download View Citation Additional Information Not Just “Can We?” but “Should We?” and “Why?”Understanding Digital Manuscripts as (Big) Data Bridget Whearty and Dot Porter Abstract It has been over a decade since the runaway popularity of “big data” hit industry and academia in the early 2010s. Today, big data and the artificial intelligence (AI) programs that feed on them are no longer being embraced with quite as much enthusiasm. With this growing awareness of the darker sides of (big) data and AI as its foundation, this article explores the challenges of working with datasets of digital manuscripts, particularly for those who seek to treat digital manuscripts as big data. We examine big data approaches that focus on digital manuscript images and those working with structured manuscript metadata, outlining what end-users must be aware of before plunging into the world of digital manuscripts as big data. Throughout, we emphasize the ethical and environmental costs in using machine learning and other AI approaches to analyze massive datasets of medieval manuscripts. The article concludes with a series of considerations for researchers who want to engage with digital manuscripts as (big) data.
May 3, 2025 at 1:46 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Thrilled that my essay "Coffee With A Codex and #manuscriptASMR : Showcasing rare books as a heritage practice," co-authored with Nicholas Herman, Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts, has been published in Mobile Heritage: Practices, Interventions, Politics (ed. Ana-Maria Herman, Routledge 2025)!!
Cover of a book Mobile Heritage: Practices, Interventions, Politics. Edited by Ana-Maria Herman. The cover art is two hands with painted fingernails holding an ipad. On the ipad is a photo of Roman or Greek ruins. Photo of the opening of a book chapter "Coffee With a Codex and #manuscriptASMR: Showcasing rare books as a heritage practice" by Nicholas Herman and Dot Porter. The chapter title and authors name are at the top of the page in a large font. Below the chapter begins, written in smaller font.
May 2, 2025 at 10:59 PM
leoba.bsky.social
New headshot!
Photo of a woman framed by a wooden doorway
May 1, 2025 at 1:04 PM
leoba.bsky.social
This week's #RainsfordDay is a collection of cabalistic and occult works compiled and translated by Charles Rainsford himself. Rainsford was an 18th c. British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist, who collected books about his interests. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1687)

🔗: bit.ly/42rYhss
April 29, 2025 at 12:38 PM
leoba.bsky.social
We have a 15th century Genealogy of Christ that is tall and skinny! Shelfmark LJS 266

openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0001/ht...
Screenshot of a list of thumbnails of a manuscript that is tall and skinny
March 24, 2025 at 4:29 PM
leoba.bsky.social
My dad, they stole from 61 times.
A search for Duncan M Porter in LibGen, showing 61 results
March 20, 2025 at 12:29 PM
leoba.bsky.social
I normally like being reminded that I once co-wrote an article with my dad, but I don't like being reminded of it when I'm searching for my name in a database of plagiarized works.
A screenshot of a search for Dot Porter in LibGen, with one result, which is "Twenty-Two Original Darwin Letters in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy" Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, by Dot Porter and Duncan M. Porter Petra Schnabel Miguel DeArce
March 20, 2025 at 12:28 PM
leoba.bsky.social
Check out this lovely review of "The Movement of Books" in Library Exhibitions Review! The exhibit closed in December, but I'm glad that folks are still reading and thinking about it. Read the whole thing here: exhibitions.arlisna.hcommons.org/library-exhi...
March 19, 2025 at 12:31 PM