Published: October 18, 2024
By: Alison Lang, UTL News
A cloth-bound version of the Bhagavad Gita. A water-damaged copy of a Hebrew codex. The final letter of a World War I officer with a pressed flower tucked within its folds.
These seemingly disparate materials each have a story that hasn’t been visible to the naked eye – until now.
As part of an ongoing collaboration between the Old Books New Science lab and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, over the past several years, researchers and archivists have been using new tech and innovative techniques to uncover new details and data contained within rare books and manuscripts.
Now, a new $1 million gift from longtime Friend of the Fisher Mark Andrews will fund research, engineering tools and new equipment to help unearth revelatory new details about these rare books and materials – supporting scholarly innovation and collaboration across the university like never before.
“The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library has long housed some of the world’s most remarkable collections,” says Chief Librarian Larry Alford. “We’re very much looking forward to seeing the ways that Mark Andrews’ thoughtful and visionary gift will unlock thrilling new opportunities for scholars to engage with and uncover the hidden stories in these materials.”
The origins of book science at U of T
Simply put, book science brings together different techniques from specialists across disciplines – from librarians to historians, scientists to technologists – to unearth the hidden stories of ancient books, materials and the people and communities who made them.
This emerging field first came to the University of Toronto as part of the Old Books New Science lab, founded in 2014 by U of T Vice President, UTM Principal and professor of medieval studies Alexandra Gillespie.
Initially built as a partnership between medieval and humanities scholars and book historians, the lab has now partnered with over 130 researchers—librarians, humanists, scientists, curators, conservators and others – from U of T and around the world as part of its latest project, Hidden Stories: New Approaches to the Local and Global History of the Book. 
One of these partners included the Fisher. Last summer the lab’s head of research Jessica Lockhart collaborated on a summer seminar with Fisher librarians – with the goal of introducing a survey of book science to interested attendees, and sharing practical knowledge and low-barrier book science techniques for future exploration.
“(Book science) connects different parts of the world and different people and moments in time in ways I’m continually motivated by,” says Lockhart. “No one comes into this field as a book science expert – you start as a scientist, a librarian, or a community member, and there’s always a learning curve as everyone works to pull together the different pieces of a book’s life story.”
As a rare book collector, the idea of book science was already on Mark Andrews’ radar – and the lab’s connections with the Fisher further revealed that there were infinite possibilities contained within these groundbreaking new initiatives.
“I’ve always been interested in understanding how books are connected to authors and how all this information comes together,” says Andrews. “This is another tool that can help us learn these details in ways we’ve never understood before.”
MISHA and the Andrews Hub
If you find yourself on the first floor of the Fisher on certain days of the week, you may hear an occasional buzz of excitement from a darkened study carrel along with the insistent hum of a machine. That’s the sound of book science in action.
The “sensory deprivation carrel,” as it’s affectionately called, is the home base of the Mark Andrews Project, where scholars like Andrews Fellow in Book Science Dr. Stephanie Lahey are currently using a scanner known as MISHA (Multi-spectral Imaging System for the Humanities and Archives) to photograph and analyze over a dozen Fisher materials and uncover fascinating details previously unseen to the naked eye.
Currently on loan from the Rochester Institute of Technology, the MISHA in the Fisher carrel is currently analyzing a number of materials that have been submitted by Fisher librarians, graduate students and other curious scholars for more analysis. This includes a Hebrew codex which Lahey carefully spreads flat beneath the MISHA’s watchful eye for a demonstration.
Scanners like MISHA illuminate an object and use a monochromatic sensor to capture a series of 2-D images under a gentle rainbow of colours - from the ultraviolet spectrum into the infrared. These images are then superimposed and reconstructed into a cube, like layers on a cake, and then the MISHA’s computer software compares differences to recover obscured or illegible text on historical documents.
Through this process, the codex’s water-damaged and smudged lettering has been made legible for the first time, page by page.
The MISHA technology was first developed and pioneered by the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2022. It’s intended to be portable and accessible to a wide range of institutions at a fraction of the cost of a conventional multispectral imaging tool – most importantly, it’s highly user-friendly and low-barrier, making it easy for librarians and archivists to use.
The Fisher will soon be purchasing its own in-house MISHA as a permanent fixture to continue exploring the mysteries of its materials and collections, as well as other projects across the U of T ecosystem.
Lahey says these tools help to challenge existing assumptions about items we think we know everything about.
“Sometimes when you hold these books and materials in your hand, they can feel so familiar, and yet they’re so removed from us – in time, in culture. So much has changed since they were created,” says Lahey. “There’s an illusion of familiarity. Book science can reinforce what we know, or it can push back against these assumptions. And that’s very important.”
For Andrews, tools like the MISHA will help support the most valuable outcomes of book science - harnessing innovation to achieve new results. Researchers will leverage the Andrews funding to expand and develop their work even further.
“We’re just scratching the surface of what we can do,” he says. “These new tools allow us to push boundaries and uncover the mysteries of these ancient texts.”
Celebrating the Andrews Gift
At a celebratory event held on October 15th, the impact of Mark Andrews’ generous gift was acknowledged by an audience of university leaders, researchers, donors, and Friends of Fisher supporters. Hosted by Loryl MacDonald, Associate Chief Librarian for Special Collections and Director of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the event featured remarks from University Chief Librarian Larry Alford, Vice President of Advancement for the University of Toronto David Palmer, and University of Toronto Vice President and UTM Principal Alexandra Gillespie, and Mark Andrews himself.
In his remarks, Andrews emphasized the potential for rare books to captivate new audiences, reveal hidden stories and inspire hope and wonder in researchers, librarians and devoted readers alike. Attendees reflected on how this gift will not only enhance the Fisher Library’s research capabilities but also foster innovation and collaboration across the university, further solidifying U of T’s leadership in book science research.
