INFO I453 (Spring 2025) Ethics on Exhibit / Ege's Scattered Scriptures
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Ege's Scattered Scriptures

Beginning in the 1920s, Otto Ege, a respected book historian and collector, began dismantling incomplete or damaged medieval texts. Attempting to preserve the knowledge of medieval lettering and writing, and spread the limited resources around, Ege sold individual leaves to museums and collectors. Later in his life, Ege expanded to putting leaves from a variety of rare illuminated medieval books in portfolios, to be sold together. This collection contains leaves primarily from medieval religious texts, including missals, hymns, and poetry. Also included are pages from a portfolio originally intended by Ege to show the evolution of black letter types.

Project People

13th century vellum page from book of Latin poetry
#Ethics #I453 #LillyLibrary #InformationLiteracy

My Project

Otto Ege is a controversial figure for his book breaking practice, with concern given to the amount of profit made from the sales. This collection, and others like it, were said to be created for educational purposes. Under utilitarianism, the breaking down and selling of rare material like this, to provide to a larger number of academics and collectors, is a positive action when taking Ege's intentions at face value.

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Big Points

  • Title: Ege mss., 1100-1599
  • Contributor: Otto F. Ege
  • Portfolio Contents: 52 mounted leaves from assorted manuscripts
  • Year of Portfolio Creation: Unknown
  • Collection Purchase Date: 1956
  • Lilly Library Call Number: LMC 2438

About Me Email Me

Profile photo for team member.

Cade Jorgensen

Cade is an undergrad student in the informatics program at Indiana University Bloomington. He earned his Associate of Science degree in informatics from Ivy Tech.

camjorge@iu.edu

Instructors & Associate Instructors

Faculty

Alexis Peirce Caudell

abpeirce@iu.edu
Faculty

Erin Chiparo

echiparo@iu.edu
TA

Ansh Arora

aa15@iu.edu
ansharora-iub
TA

Sia Sardana

siasard@iu.edu
siasardana
TA

James Taylor

jtt1@iu.edu