Books tell their story: cataloguing secondary notes in Islamic manuscripts in Gotha

Within the framework of the research group WRoTe: “Wissensrohstoff Text” funded by the European Social Fund for Germany  at Leipzig University (http://wirote.informatik.unileipzig.de/wrote/index.php) a new project has been called to life which aims to broaden our knowledge about the book culture of the Middle East. Manuscript books from many parts of that region can be eloquent witnesses to their history and the people using them. Some are littered with notes documenting their purchase, public and private reading, inheritance, endowment, lending or pawning, to name but the most common among them.