iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 29/09/2026

I'm not big fan of AI-for-everything, but not all AI is equal... a reaction to substack post of Ranke de Vries.

leaflet.rocek.dev

What HTR is (and is not) for

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Reposted by Martin Roček

DigiLab, Institute for Medieval Research, ÖAW @digilab-imafo.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We extended the application deadline for Winter School: HTR of Historical Sources to 15th September 2026. This year, all sessions will be virtual, and we have added several new languages! Check out our Indico website in the comments.

Cream-coloured promotional banner titled "Winter School: HTR of Historical Sources 2026", with "2026" in large red type. Three text blocks list the working groups — Carolingian Latin, Late Medieval Latin, Early Modern German, Byzantine Greek, Syriac, Church Slavonic and Old Icelandic — the venue and schedule (2 October to 27 November 2026, virtual sessions from 2pm to 5pm), and the application deadline of 15 September 2026. At the right, a red-and-black line drawing shows a haloed medieval scribe in a red cap reading an open book, with a bird perched on his shoulder.

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DigiLab, Institute for Medieval Research, ÖAW @digilab-imafo.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Join us online for SCOOP's second keynote today at 17:15 (UTC+2). Anna Dolganov and David Smith will present on generative AI in their talk: "New Epistemic Frontiers: LLMs for Linking Transcription, Editing, and Interpretation. Details in the comment.

Title slide for the 2nd Exchange Meeting of SCOOP: International Network for Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources, held in Vienna, September 7–9, 2026. The presentation title reads "New Epistemic Frontiers: LLMs for Linking Transcription, Editing, and Interpretation" by Anna Dolganov & David Smith, Austrian Academy of Sciences & Northeastern University, with the link https://scoop-network.org.

Photo of a large tiered lecture hall with gold-paneled walls and ceiling, filled with conference attendees seated at rows of grey desks, many with laptops open, listening attentively during a SCOOP network session; one attendee near the front is a remote participant represented by a tablet showing a question mark instead of a face.

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DigiLab, Institute for Medieval Research, ÖAW @digilab-imafo.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

2nd Exchange Meeting of SCOOP: International Network for Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources starts on Monday. Keynotes by Thibault Clérice, Anna Dolganov and David Smith will be streamed via Zoom. Check the website for the links.

Title slide for the 2nd Exchange Meeting of SCOOP (International Network for Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources), Vienna, September 7–9, 2026. Presentation title: "The Transcription/Edition Distinction as a Foundation for Trustworthy Automatic Text Recognition" by Thibault Clérice, ALMAnaCH, Inria. Link: https://scoop-network.org.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/09/2026

Last chance to register for our second meeting of SCOOP - ATR network. If you’re interested in HTR or what comes next, definitely check it out. Keynotes will be streamed via Zoom if you can’t make it to Vienna. For more information, check our website: scoop-network.org.

Event poster on a pale mint background. Top line reads 'International Network for Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources.' A geometric grid of dark grey and light green bars forms an abstract hashtag-like symbol, with three faint characters set in its cells: a Chinese character (行), a Latin letter 'a', and a Hebrew letter (א). Below: '2nd Exchange Meeting of SCOOP – Source Codes of the Past, September 7–9, 2026, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 29, 1090 Vienna.’

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 21/08/2026

If you want to learn more about HTR and @transkribus.bsky.social, definitely check out our Winter School! 😊

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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Every part of this resonates. I've been trying to articulate something similar about "the ground shifting underneath language" or "language being destabilized." And this feels especially uncanny and dizzying when I suspect AI use in personal messages from people I know very well. IDK where it leads.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 10/08/2026

So it seems lots of small artists in the EU are forced to cancel shipping to other European countries due to PPWR. Why does it feel that doing business inside the “single market” is more hassle than just doing business outside it? 🫠

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 07/08/2026

Yesterday me and @vanlinduist.bsky.social had an amazing day meeting colleagues from Otsuma Women’s University in Tokyo, teaching Transkribus and showing some of our projects - MANU and Translucens. It was a wonderful experience. Now we are enjoying bits of Tokyo before travelling back to Europe.

Martin, wearing glasses, a black t-shirt, and white sneakers, stands in a presentation room pointing toward a projected slide displaying a digitized historical manuscript page.

Katrin, wearing a patterned white top, dark pants, and red athletic shoes, gestures with her hands while presenting in front of a projector screen showing an ancient manuscript document.

A wide gravel pathway lined with dense green trees leads toward a grand wooden Torii gate, with visitors walking beneath it.

An outdoor selfie of Katrin and Martin on a sunny day, with a scenic stone arch bridge over a moat and imperial palace in the background

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 05/08/2026

Hot take: The newer parts of Transkribus are so hardly vibe-coded that some of the bugs would take human engineers more effort to make than to avoid them.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/08/2026

Wonderful talk of @vanlinduist.bsky.social in the last session at #DH2026. And concluding ceremony with traditional Korean dance - Talchum. Can’t wait to see all the people in Galway next year.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 31/07/2026

A little self-promo, if you’re working with #IIIF and historical documents, you might want to check out my annotation tool, MANU. I’m also happy to take any suggestions for improvement. New features are scheduled for this autumn. #DH2026 manu.is

manu.is

Manu ・ Manuscript Annotation & Visualisation

A collaborative platform for annotating, transcribing, and visualising historical manuscripts. Built on IIIF and W3C Web Annotations.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 31/07/2026

Scrolling down to the Friday programme takes a while, so I've decided to do a quick fix and add filter buttons for the day. Also, last update before sunsetting the website as the conference is heading towards the end. dh-daejeon.vercel.app #DH2026

dh-daejeon.vercel.app

DH2026 — Daejeon, July 27–31

Digital Humanities 2026: Engagement — all accepted sessions.

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ANTIDOTE - Advanced Training in Digitization of Older Texts @antidote-network.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Two members of the ANTIDOTE network, Paola Peratello, École nationale des chartes (PSL), and Katrín Lísa L. Mikaelsdóttir @vanlinduist.bsky.social, University of Iceland, have been accepted to present their current #DH projects at #DH2026 in Daejeon, Korea!

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DARIAH-IS/CDHA | Centre for Digital Humanities and Arts @mshl-cdha.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

We are at #DH2026 in Daejeon! This Friday, 31 July, @vanlinduist.bsky.social and @eirikursmari.bsky.social will present “Engaging the Fragmented Archive: A Unified Portal for Icelandic Cultural Heritage”. 🕘 14:00–15:30 KST 📍 Session S073 in Room 209–211 #DH #digitalhumanities

Katrín Lísa L. Mikaelsdóttir pointing at a massive wall-mounted schedule banner for the DH2026 Conference in Daejeon, Korea. The banner outlines sessions from Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31, 2026, with ADHO and KADH logos at the top. Katrín is pointing specifically to the cell for Thursday at 14:00-15:30, labeled "PS3 Long and Short Paper Sessions."

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 29/07/2026

I’ve added direct links to Whova if you want to watch the session. If you have any suggestions for improvement, let me know. 😊 #DH2026

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 28/07/2026

If you're like me, constantly jumping between the abstract book and the programme, you might find this tiny website that I tried to quickly stitch together useful: dh-daejeon.vercel.app. #DH2026

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 27/07/2026

Finally got my registration package! If anyone would like to meet and discuss DH projects or Design/UX, I’m in Daejeon! #DH2026 Unfortunately no MANU or Translucens talk on schedule (hopefully next year!).

A folding fan and a wrapped gift box rest on a beige DH2026 conference tote bag, alongside a name badge reading 'Martin Roček, Austrian Academy of Sciences' and a DH2026 Engagement program booklet, with a blurred view of high-rise apartment buildings in the background.

A teal and red twin-arch pedestrian bridge crosses a calm river at dusk, reflecting in the water, with a tall glass skyscraper on the right and cloudy blue skies above, hills visible in the background.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 20/07/2026

I think we should start something like “non-vibe-coded digital humanities”, because in recent days I see more and more unsustainable slop.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 19/07/2026

I’ve never been more disappointed by a choice of airline. We were supposed to fly to Osaka with @emiratesairways.bsky.social, zero communication, “slight delay,” and we are stranded in Dubai waiting for the next day’s flight. 🫠

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 13/07/2026

We've got an idea... would you use it?

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 11/07/2026

We were excited to hear that some people at @imc-leeds.bsky.social already used Translucens! 🤯 Here are some new things that we have been working on in the meantime. Working on a paper with @vanlinduist.bsky.social! #DigitalHumanities #DH #Translucens

Screenshot of the Translucens tool interface displaying a segment of a medieval manuscript. The image is visually split into four vertical strips using different blending modes, demonstrating how users can adjust settings to reveal hidden or faded text within the historical document.

Close-up of a computer keyboard focusing on the Command (⌘) and 'Z' keys, used to illustrate keyboard shortcuts for comparing image states: 'ctrl/cmd + z' to go backwards and 'ctrl/cmd + y' to go forwards.

Screenshot of the Translucens tool interface, showing a historical manuscript fragment split down the middle: the left side displays the original, dark-toned parchment, while the right side shows an inverted, bright blue-toned view to improve legibility. A floating toolbar with zoom and toggle buttons is visible over the image.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 11/07/2026

You know how @ryanairofficial.bsky.social is mocking passengers for choosing them due to low prices? Well, I have an idea for another ad - we won’t seat you with your partner, but we make sure your neighbors are strong enough to pull you back in the seat.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 09/07/2026

And that’s it, what a blast! So many wonderful papers at #IMC26!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 08/07/2026

I just found THE remote control! Call Axel.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 07/07/2026

Second day at #IMC2026. Finally saw some rabbits; so far, they seem quite peaceful compared to their medieval counterparts. 😮‍💨

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Dr Katrín Lísa L. Mikaelsdóttir @vanlinduist.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Just in time for the IMC, our Transkribus model for 13th-century Icelandic - the platform's first public model for medieval Icelandic - has been published. More about it on Tuesday. Til hamingju, Alice! share.google/FENjXwRlnXE3...

share.google

Late 13th Century Old Icelandic AM 519 a 4to - Diplomatic | Icelandic, Norse Text Recognition Model | Transkribus

This diplomatic model is based on the late 13th century Old Icelandic manuscript AM 519 a 4to. The images used for this model were sourced from handrit.is. T...

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 05/07/2026

@imc-leeds.bsky.social, it seems setting up social links in the IMC app is broken. I’m trying to add my Bluesky there and without success.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/07/2026

Nothing better than Booking cancelling your Leeds stay two days before! Luckily, I already got an alternative, and if someone wants to meet to discuss something related to DH, I’ll be at @imc-leeds.bsky.social the whole week! 😊

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/07/2026

Finally managed to show @vanlinduist.bsky.social some of the gems of my country. 😊

The interior of a Gothic church featuring a central, light-colored stone baptismal font. A vibrant stained-glass window on the right casts colorful blue, purple, and orange light reflections across the tiled stone floor in the foreground. In the background, a large stone gothic archway frames a dimly lit corridor leading to wooden doors.

A wide, slightly elevated view of the grand Gothic facade of St. Barbara's Church. The building's intricate stone architecture, towering arched windows, and sharp central spire dominate the frame. In front of the cathedral, a manicured green lawn features an ornamental flowerbed arrangement, surrounded by a gravel courtyard where a few people walk. Lush green trees frame the scene on both sides under a highly textured, cloudy sky.

A high-angle, scenic view of the historic town of Kutná Hora under a dramatic blue sky filled with thick, fluffy white clouds. On the left, the tall stone tower of St. James's Church stands prominently above surrounding red-roofed buildings. In the center-right, the long beige facade of the Jesuit College and other historic structures rest behind a stone wall. The foreground is filled with the dense green canopy of trees, with a few domestic rooftops peeking through at the bottom.

A low-angle shot of the iconic St. Barbara's Church in Kutná Hora, showcasing its unique three-peaked, tent-like Gothic spires rising against a bright blue sky filled with dramatic white clouds. To the right, the grand white facade of the Jesuit College is visible, topped with a red-tiled roof and an elegant baroque tower. The lower portion of the image shows a grassy hillside and green trees.

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Eurosky Social @eurosky.social · 11/06/2026

Muve to the beat. Muve the conversation. Muve mountains. Today @eurosky.social announces mu.social, a new microblogging app to experiment with the future of social! 🪩💖

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 04/06/2026

A little addition to my Lord of the Rings collection.

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Reposted by Martin Roček

DigiLab, Institute for Medieval Research, ÖAW @digilab-imafo.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Interested in exploring different applications of ATR/HTR? Join us for the hybrid workshop "Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources: From convolutional neural networks to vision language models", 12 June, in Vienna or via Zoom. Programme and registration: indico.global/e/automated-...

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/06/2026

If you’re in Prague, definitely visit the exhibition on medieval colophons in National library! I did a few apps for it, and you can see MANU in action too!

A visitor — a young woman with long brown hair, seen from behind — interacts with a touchscreen kiosk in a dimly lit museum gallery. The screen displays a digitised manuscript page titled “Vše dohromady” on a cyan background. To her left, a large yellow exhibition panel numbered “2” is titled “Kolofony / Colophons”, with Czech and English explanatory text and reproductions of historical manuscript colophons. A glass display case containing open historical books is visible in the lower left.

A blue vertical banner mounted on the wall of a building passageway, advertising the exhibition “Tired, Thirsty, Thoughtful”, running 26 May – 5 July 2026, Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–18:00, free entry. The banner features a comic-style illustration of a medieval scribe reading from a manuscript at a lectern, with a left-pointing arrow at the bottom directing visitors. In the background, a sunlit courtyard or street is visible through an arched gate with ornate ironwork, with people walking outside.

Interior of a museum exhibition room with vaulted ceilings. On the left, an interactive touchscreen kiosk on a dark pedestal displays a bilingual Czech interface with blue illustrated icons. On the right, a large yellow exhibition panel numbered “8” is titled “Střídání jazyků / Code-switching”, featuring text and facsimiles of historical manuscript excerpts. A glass display case with open historical books is visible in the foreground on the right.

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ANTIDOTE - Advanced Training in Digitization of Older Texts @antidote-network.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Day 4 of the #antidote joint training week in Bratislava: After a busy morning of coding, we traded our screens for beautiful scenery. Participants, teachers, and organizers headed out to Devín Castle by boat!

A large group of people posing together outdoors on a bright, sunny day. The group is arranged in rows, some standing, others kneeling or sitting on a grassy hill mixed with stone paving. In the background, the Danube flows through a scenic landscape of green fields, trees, and rolling hills under a clear blue sky.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 27/05/2026

I’m helping participants of @antidote-network.bsky.social in Bratislava, and we reached a very specific problem - there is no easy way to connect eXistDB to vscode so they can use more advanced features than Exide provides. So I made a little extension for Web DAV. It’s open source.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 22/05/2026

I think some developers should really stop and think if a vibe-coded animation is the right thing to do. 🙄 This animation in Transkribus in idle state eats about 14% of the M3 Pro CPU in Vivaldi... almost all of the CPU on slower machines (basic Intel 2019 MacBook Pro), rerendering on every frame.

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Cato Minor @catominor.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Our book on Automated/Handwritten Text Recognition is out and it is open access :). bielefelduniversitypress.de/publikatione... #htr #atr #digitalhumanities

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 18/05/2026

I realised that we don't live in an ideal world, and I messed up the demo project permissions. It should work now. 😊 If you missed yesterday’s updates!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 17/05/2026

One tiny update on my Latin "dictionary". You might have noticed there are translation and lemmatisation options which were not working. Now they should be fixed again. vocabula.lat

vocabula.lat

Vocabula.lat - Search in multiple dictionaries with a single query

With a simple query, you can search in Whitaker's words, Cappelli Online and the Czech Dictionary of Medieval Latin.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 17/05/2026

I've refactored a few components in #MANU and in an ideal world you shouldn't notice a difference. Plus, this refactoring helped me to introduce two new features, actually three: -tools can now be invoked by keyboard shortcuts -manuscripts can be embedded on any website #DigitalHumanities #IIIF

Detail of the MANU platform interface demonstrating manuscript annotation. A vertical toolbar with editing icons is on the left, with the cursor tool active. On the manuscript canvas, a bounding box selects a red rubricated Lombardic initial 'A'. An adjacent popover dialog contains an active text editor titled 'Initial letter A', showing a paleographic description of the letter alongside rich text formatting options and save controls.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 14/05/2026

While @vanlinduist.bsky.social is creating awesome presentations on design, I've been inspired by one of her designs and decided to try to recreate a medieval font from a real manuscript. I'm not sure if this ever became a proper font (probably not), it was just fun to try.

A promotional graphic for a medieval-style font set against a red background. A central cream-colored card features the letters "Aa" in a large, red, gothic style. Below it, text in red and black reads, "from medieval manuscript to digital edition, real medieval font based on medieval handwriting." At the bottom of the card, smaller grey text reads, "Praha, Národní knihovna České Republiky, IV C 3."

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 12/05/2026

Feedback is important to me 😊 And because not everyone has a GitHub account, it was only a matter of time until I implemented a feedback form directly in the app. So from today you can request features or report bugs directly from MANU. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities #MANU

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 05/05/2026

MANU got a few quality of life improvements; now you don't need to go through registration, but you can simply log in via your Google or Microsoft account (more accounts soon; wish there was a BlueSky/ATproto OAuth extension for Better-Auth). #DigitalHumanities #MANU #IIIF 1/2

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/05/2026

As if yesterday’s announcement wasn’t enough, MANU beta is also available to try. 🥳 You can open any IIIF manifest, annotate it and collaborate with your colleagues. P.S. AI transcriptions are using the free tier, which might limit availability now. manu.is

manu.is

Manu ・ Manuscript Annotation & Visualisation

A collaborative platform for annotating, transcribing, and visualising historical manuscripts. Built on IIIF and W3C Web Annotations.

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William J.B. Mattingly @wjbmattingly.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

I spent the weekend migrating my old PythonHumanities website from WordPress to a custom design (thanks, Claude) that allows for more flexibility, including live coding exercises in each page. I also updated things to make getting started with Python easier by using uv. More soon!

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