Papyrology and technology

(Thanks to Gregg Schwendner for posting the papyrological congress programme at What’s New in Papyrology.)

Thursday August 19th, morning
88. DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS OF THE TRADE I Adam Bülow-Jacobsen  presiding
89. Herwig Maehler Die Zukunft der griechischen Papyrologie
90. Bart Van Beek Papyri in bits & bytes – electronic texts and how to use them
91. Marius Gerhardt Papyrus Portal Deutschland

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS OF THE TRADE I Roger Bagnall  presiding
101. Reinhold Scholl Textmining  und Papyri
102. Herbert Verreth Topography of Egypt online

107. Joshua Sosin / James Cowey Digital papyrology : a new platform for collaborative control of DDbDP, HGV, and APIS data Plenary session in Room MR080 (1 hour)

Friday August 20th, morning
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS OF THE TRADE II Rodney Ast presiding
133. Giovanna Menci Utilità di un database di alfabeti per lo studio della scrittura greca dei papiri
134. Marie-Hélène Marganne Les extensions du fichier Mertens-Pack3 du CEDOP AL
135. Robert Kraft Imaging the papyri collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum (Philadelphia PA, USA)

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS OF THE TRADE III James Cowey presiding
146. Roger T. Macfarlane / Stephen M. Bay Multi-Spectral Imaging and Papyrology : Advantages and Limitations
147. Adam Bülow-Jacobsen Digital infrared photography of papyri and ostraca

So this astonishingly rich programme of digital topics at the International Papyrological Congress this year makes me wonder: what would it take to get this much digital interest at a major epigraphic meeting, or the annual Classics meetings, for that matter? (A couple of Digital Classicist panels at recent APA/AIA and CA conferences notwithstanding–there’s nothing as diverse and in-the-wild as the above at any Classics conference I’ve been to in recent years.) Can we do anything about this with top-down encouragement, or does it have to be a natural ground-swell? Or is papyrology just a naturally more technical subdiscipline than the rest of Classics?