Dr Julia Craig-McFeely

Julia Craig-McFeely studied at Edinburgh University (BMus, MMus) with Michael Tilmouth, Kenneth Leighton and Peter Williams. She completed her DPhil on English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-1630 at the University of Oxford in 1994. Her research is primarily in Early Modern English manuscript studies, initially with English lute manuscripts and more recently in the codicology and palaeography of Tudor partbooks.

After several years as a college lecturer at a number of Colleges, and a Junior Research Fellowship at St Anne’s College, she ran a successful freelance business typesetting music and text that had particular difficulties in layout or design (including transcribing and setting Donizetti’s opera Elisabetta from his autograph, for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), and has since typeset a number of publications in musicology, including the award-winning Facsimile and introductory study of Bologna MS Q.15, by Margaret Bent, and Sam Barrett’s The Melodic Tradition of Boethius “De consolatione philosophiae” in the Middle Ages, (Monumenta Monodica Subsidia Series VII, 2 vols., Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2013). She is the General Editor and director of the production team of DIAMM Publications, many of whose publications have also received academic awards.

Julia Craig-McFeely has been the Project Manager of DIAMM (www.diamm.ac.uk (http://www.diamm.ac.uk) ) since 1998 and a Director since 2007. She has published and lectured in Europe and the USA both about her research and about the work of DIAMM, and in particular about creating high-quality images of archive documents and digital restoration. She has also lectured on intellectual property rights in relation to digital images. She is known internationally as an expert in archive-quality imaging of delicate documents, and consults to a number of organisations including the National Library of Ireland and the Israel Antiquities Authority. In 2008 she was one of the team of specialists who undertook the pilot project to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem.

She is an organist at two churches in Oxford, directs a number of choral groups in and around the city, and is an occasional composer and arranger.

Current Research Grants:

  • Co-investigator: Tudor Partbooks: the Manuscript legacies of John Baldwin and John Sadler, Universities of Newcastle and Oxford (AHRC funded)
  • Collaborating Partner: SIMSSA (Single Interface for Music Score Searching and Analysis), McGill University, Montreal (SSHRC funded)

Paper Publications

  • with Matthias Range, ‘Forty Years in the Wilderness: John Sadler of the Sadler Partbooks’, Music & Letters, 101/4 December 2020.
  • with Matthias Range, The Sadler Partbooks: collaborative Reconstruction and introductory study, DIAMM Facsimiles, 7 (forthcoming, Oxford, 2021)
  • ‘Strip and Tease: Digitally Undressing Tudor Scribes’, in Proceedings of Symposium ‘Notated Music in the Digital Sphere: Possibilities and Limitations’, National Library of Norway, Oslo 2018 (forthcoming, Oslo, 2021)
  • Restoration, reconstruction, and revisionism: altering our virtual perception of damaged manuscripts in Disiecta Membra Musicae. Studies in Musical Fragmentology, ed. G. Varelli (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020)
  • ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean lute manuscripts: types, characteristics and compilation’, Études Anglaises special issue: Early modern english manuscripts, volume 72/4, 2019.
  • Beyond the fire of attrition: acid decay and forensic reconstruction’ in Oxford Handbook of Music and Corpus Studies, ed. Daniel Shanahan, John Ashley Burgoyne and Ian Quinn (Oxford: OUP, 2020).
  • ‘Recovering lost texts, rebuilding lost manuscripts’, Archive Journal Digital Medieval Manuscript Cultures special edition September 2018 Edited by Michael Hanrahan, Bridget Whearty
  • ‘The future of the Christ Church Library Music Catalogue: creating online access to manuscript images: information and image management issues’ Christ Church Library Newsletter Vol 8, Jan 2013) ISSN 1756-6797 (Print), ISSN 1756-6800 (Online)
  • ‘Digital Man and the desire for physical objects’ Early Music 40th anniversary issue 2013, vol. 41 (OUP, Spring 2013), 131–33. Full text: http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/cas147?
ijkey= 40NML9zStOjZIHd&keytype=ref; pdf: http://em.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/cas147?
ijkey=40NM L9zStOjZIHd&keytype=ref
  • Contributor Musicology (Re-) Mapped Discussion paper commissioned by the European Science Foundation (ESF): Standing Committee for the Humanities (SCH). ESF Editors Nina Kancewicz-Hoffman (head of Humanities and Scoial Sciences Unit), Arianna Ciula (Science Officer, Humantities and Social Sciences Unit). Other authors: Xavier Bisaro, David Fiala, Philippe Vendrix, Theodor Dumitrescu, Jukka Louhivouri, Dan Lundberg, Richard Parncutt
  • ‘Digitization standards or standard digitization?’ Christ Church Library Newsletter June 2012
  • ‘From perfect to preposterous: how digital restoration can both help and hinder our reading of damaged sources’. Proceedings of the 2010 Schoenberg Symposium (publ. 2012)
  • ‘The real cost of acquiring pictures for the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM)’, The Soul of Wit. Micro-Festschrift Rob Wegman zum 50. Geburtstag, edited by Michael Scott Cuthbert (Somerville/Mass., 2011), 12r
  • ‘Digital Restoration and the future of manuscript research.’ in Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age II (Dublin, 2010)
  • Digital Restoration Workbook, published in association with the AHRC ICT Methods Network (2007).
  • ‘The Signifying Serpent: Seduction by cultural Stereotype’ in Linda Austern ed., Music Sensation and Sensuality, Critical and Cultural Musicology V, Chicago 2002.
  • (with Andrew Wathey and Margaret Bent), “The Art of Virtual Restoration: Creating the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM)”, Walter B. Hewlett and Eleanor Selfridge-Field, The Virtual Score: Representation, Retrieval, Restoration  (Computing in Musicology, 12, 2001),  227-240
  • RICERCAR Inventories of sources of English lute music, general editor Victor Coelho. Publication forthcoming.
  • Music Research Information Network Register of Music Research Students in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 editions. ISSN 0956-263X
  • Bibliography: ‘A Bibliography of Theses related to Eighteenth Century Music in England’  Handbook of Eighteenth Century Studies  II, (1990)
  • ‘Fragments of English lute music II: Oxford libraries’ The Lute, xxxiii (1993)
  • ‘Fragments of English lute music I: The British Library’  The Lute, xxxii (1992)
  • ‘A Can of Worms: Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s Lute Book’ The Lute, xxxi (1991)

Digital publications:

  • 1998-2016: Database of the DIAMM online resource diamm.ac.uk. Creation, maintenance and updating of metadata, inventories and bibliographies for 3348 medieval and early modern manuscripts; capture of some 30,000 digital images of sources of medieval music
  • January 2007: ‘Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music: the evolution of a digital resource.’ Digital Medievalist 3 (2008). ISSN: 1715-0736. (peer reviewed)
  • 15 June 2005, DigiNews article, ‘Bringing the Digital Revolution to Medieval Musicology: The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM)’, Julia Craig-McFeely and Marilyn Deegan.
  • http://www.diamm.ac.uk/reports/July.pdf (Report of the second 2-day workshop of DIAMM and its technical and academic advisors, 29, 30 July 2004).
  • http://www.diamm.ac.uk/reports/June.pdf (Report on intellectual property rights 11 June 2004)
  • http://www.diamm.ac.uk/reports/November.pdf (Report of the first 2-day workshop of DIAMM and its technical and academic advisors, 27-28 November 2003)
  • 2000: Web publication of thesis ‘English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-1630’ with revisions at URL www.craigmcfeely.force9.co.uk/thesis.html
  • 2007:”Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music: The Evolution of a Digital Resource.’ Digital Medievalist 3 (2007/8) http://www.digitalmedievalist.og/journal/3/mcfeely/

Research Papers and Presentations

  • 12 September 2019, Invited paper: ‘ ‘How dark is my archive?’: What lies behind and beyond the face of Musicology’s online archive, DIAMM’ Dark Archives: A Conference on the Medieval Unread and Unreadable, Oxford.
  • 25 October 2018, Invited paper: ‘Digital Reconstruction to recover “lost” manuscripts’, National Library of Norway, Oslo
  • 20 October 2018, ‘DIAMM at 20’ (joint presentation), Plainsong and Medieval Music Society Study Day, Oxford.
  • 2 July 2018 Invited paper: ‘The digital reconstruction of the lost partbooks of John Sadler, Oxford, Bodleian Library Mus.e.1–5’, Royal College of Music, London
  • 9 May 2018, Invited paper: ‘Preserving ancient sounds: the challenges of describing the transmission of music in medieval and early modern manuscripts.’, Manuscript Cataloguing in a Comparative Perspective: State of the Art, Common Challenges, Future Directions. Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Hamburg.
  • 21 March 2018, Invited paper: ‘Restoration, reconstruction, and revisionism: altering our virtual perception of damaged manuscripts’, Disiecta Membra Musicae, Magdalen College Oxford
  • 8 July 2017, Introducing the Secretrary Hand, talk and demonstration with an exhibition of original documents, Oxford Scribes (Calligraphy society) workshop day, Stanton-St-John, Oxford
  • 13 May 2017, 12:00-12:50: Forensic Recovery with Digital Documents, Plainsong and Medieval Music Society Study Day, Worcester Cathedral
  • 7 July 2016: ‘Taxonomy and Terminology in Early Modern partbook hands’, Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Sheffield.
  • 5 Feb 2016, 13.00-14.00: Exultation and despondency: the digital reconstruction of the lost partbooks of John Sadler (Bodleian Library Mus. e. 1-5)
  • 23 July 2015: ‘Blind alleys, science fiction, redundancy and modernization: how musicology is and isn’t evolving in response to the digital world’ Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School, 20-24 July 2015
  • 22 July 2015: ‘Digital Restoration for Beginners: Is This For Me and How Would I Get Started?’ Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School, 20-24 July 2015
  • 16 July 2015: ‘Restoration of the surviving copying work of John Sadler’ Oundle Early Music Festival
  • 8 July 2015: ‘Identifying scribal hands: a methodological toolkit and an Elizabethan case study’ Medieval and Renaissance conference, Brussels, 6-9 July 2015
  • 17 May 2015: ‘Restoring the Sadler Partbooks’ Oxford Early Music Festival tea-time talk
  • 16 June 2015: ‘Perspectives on building a digital image resource’ Invited paper at workshop on medieval insular liturgical manuscripts with music: local, regional and European perspectives, Trinity College Dublin 16-17 June 2015
  • 20th, 27th and 29th April 2015: Digital Restoration workshop, University of Oxford IT Services
  • 12 Feb 2015: Introduction to digital restoration, Open lecture, Faculty of Music, Oxford
  • 1 Dec 2014: ‘Lute Manuscripts and their uses: handwriting, society and artistic culture in 16th- and 17th-century England’ Open University Book History Research Group seminar series, ‘Paper, Pen and Ink: Manuscript Cultures in Early Modern England’
  • 14 July 2014: ‘Restoration and revelation: how digital images are far more than simply photographs in the digital medium’ Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School, 14-17 July 2014.
  • 5 July 2014: Tudor Partbooks research project. Multimedia presentation, Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Birmingham, 3-6 July 2014
  • 25 April 2013: ‘I saw it on CSI…’: forming digital technology for humanities research. Invited paper at 1 day workshop ‘Describing, Analysing and Identifying Early Modern Handwriting: Methods and Issues’. Organized by the Centre for Early Modern Studies and Merton College History of the Book Group, with the co-operation of the Bodleian Library Centre for the Study of the Book.
  • 28 November 2012: IP discussion group, SCR Law Faculty, University of Oxford: “Images and desires: ownership, anxiety and the art of persuasion”
  • 2 November 2012: Byrd and Music Study Day, Christ Church Oxford: “creating online access to manuscript images: information and image management issues”
  • 7 July 2012: IMS, Rome 2012: Invited speaker/Ppnellist in Session: “The Transmission of Musical Knowledge in the Internet Age”
  • 27 Feb 2012: Rudiments of Digital Restoration: a starter seminar for Graduate students.
  • 1 April 2011: ‘DIAMM data content and some problems in data extent and management’ Database and data connectivity workshop, Oxford eResearch Centre, Oxford
  • 20 Nov 2010 (invited paper): ‘From perfect to preposterous: how digital restoration can both help and hinder our reading of damaged sources’ Schoenberg Symposium, University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Free Library.
  • 22 Sept 2010: ‘The DIAMM database’ Humanities Technical Resources Workshop, Oxford e Research Centre, Oxford
  • 14 July 2010: ‘ Image capture: problems and issues in digitizing images for research’ Oxford Pro-Vice-Chancellor’s Research Workshop, Oxford eResearch Centre

Research interests in the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM).