A digital specialist librarian from Belgium recently visited the William D. Walsh Family Library to give staff a demonstration of a high-powered digital scanner.

Hendrik Hameeuw of Katholieke Universiteit Deuven originally came to the U.S. to demo the Portable Light Dome Scanner for the curators and researchers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Through a connection that Lisa Lancia, director of international initiatives at the Fordham Libraries, had with a Belgian program, Hameeuw offered to give Fordham faculty and staff a demo of the device on campus.

Offering a state-of-the-art approach to looking at cultural heritage, the scanner helps others visualize the topography of medieval book illuminations, stamps, inks, seals, and bookbinding stamps in two-dimensional.

The demonstration included Hameeuw’s presentation on advanced imaging techniques followed by test scans of items selected from Fordham Library’s Special Collections.

Director of University Libraries Linda LoSchiavo called the technology “thrilling.”

“Digitization is an important issue for us, not only in terms of preserving Fordham’s past,” she said, “but in the that it allows us to present research in a truly unique way.”

–Lindsey Fritz

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