A Tentative Check List of Dated Syriac Manuscripts up to 1300

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of current library, publishing and research trends for Syriac studies. A good research library is essential to good scholarship, but the medium for delivering that library is changing, and Syriac scholars are increasingly working with both print and digital resources. Specialist on-line collections are supplementing the holdings of massive on-line repositories, providing open access to the majority of out-of-copyright works in the field. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that the printed book is no longer the ideal container for certain types of information, and digital corpora and databases are being created and conceived to replace their print equivalents. Thus, databases are emerging as dynamic replacements for traditional Syriac reference works, and digital corpora are in preparation that supplement and facilitate access to the printed corpus of Syriac literature. In addition to examining the advantages promised to Syriac scholars by the digital research environment, this paper also considers some of the obstacles and disadvantages posed by this transition.