Johanna Green (she/her) was Senior Lecturer in Information Studies and Co-Director of the Glasgow-wide Digital Cultural Heritage ArtsLab until she medically retired in 2023 due a terminal cancer diagnosis; she specialises in book history and digital humanities. She was on research leave during the academic year 2019-20 during which she was awarded a Visiting Research Fellow at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries; this Fellowship has since been extended due to the Covid-19 global pandemic.

Johanna’s research interests are in the history of text technologies, focusing on the manuscript, early printed book, and digital page as material object and cultural artefact, and the development and use of digital technologies for the elucidation of historical texts and documents. Johanna has particular interests in how public audiences access written heritage – digitally and/or within exhibition spaces – and how emerging digital tools might allow for a more immersive, sensory, and digital “hands-on” experience than has traditionally been possible. This research has been supported by an RSE workshop grant awarded in 2019 examining the digital exhibition of Archives and Special Collections, including core participants from the University of Aberdeen Archives and Special Collections, the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Scotland, Glasgow Museums, and the Schoenberg Institute of Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; this work has also been extended into 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alongside this research, Johanna is involved in the University's Innovate UK-funded Project Mobius: Edify. She was first selected to develop one of ten Virtual Reality pathfinder apps to enable a teaching intervention not possible without immersive technology in 2018; her app delivered content relating to the history of text technologies, namely a VR early printing press. In December 2020 she was chosen to develop an Edify teaching app for a second time. This second app sees collaboration with Prof. Bill Endres (University of Oklahoma) to deliver "Virtual Codicology", bringing the study of book history and 3D images of medieval manuscripts together within a virtual environment. The resulting app will re-conceptualise how we study and research the complexities of the medieval codex and teach manuscript collation; this app begins development in 2021. She is a member of the University of Glasgow’s XR Strategy Board.

In 2020, Johanna was one of a core group of staff who worked to develop best practice in remote, object-based learning and teaching with the University's Archives and Special Collections (ASC) 'Virtual Collections Classroom' technology, installed to assist with the material distance from Collections that staff and students experienced as a result of the Covid-19 global pandemic. In 2021 she won a University of Glasgow SRC Student Teaching Award for 'Best Practice in Online Learning' and was also nominated and shortlisted for 'Best College Teacher' within the College of Arts for her use of this technology. Later that year she was also awarded a University Teaching Excellence Award (Early Career) at University and College level for this work. During the same period, Johanna was awarded LTDF funding from the University to develop a University-wide resource sharing best practice models of experiential learning and teaching with ASC items; the resource will offer methodologies and guides for in person, digitally-augmented, and remote learning and teaching with ASC materials and - crucially - involves co-creation of curricula with Undergraduate students. 

Johanna has digital humanities, textual editing, and manuscript studies experience working with a range of interdisciplinary research projects. Until it was published in 2009, she was a Section Editor for the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (OUP), and from 2009-11 she held the post of Research Assistant (formerly Project Assistant) on the Digital Humanities JISC-funded Enroller project at the University of Glasgow; in 2009 she also assisted with the Grove Encyclopaedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, published by OUP. From 2012, Johanna worked as a Research Assistant helping index The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 (University of Leicester), before being employed as a Project Assistant for the Medical Humanities AHRC-funded The Consultation Letters of Dr William Cullen (1710-1790) at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and for the Mellon-funded Manuscripts of Ælfric’s ‘Catholic Homilies’, both based at Glasgow.  She then worked with the U.S.-based Livingstone Online, assisting with the first digital critical edition of Dr David Livingstone’s best-selling travelogue, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.  From 2013-16 Johanna directed the Digital Editions and Editing: Historical Texts and Documents strand of the CLARIN-DE European Summer University in Digital Humanities at the University of Leipzig, having been elected to the role by their Scientific Committee.  

Johanna works closely with the University of Glasgow Library's Archives and Special Collections; she served as an award panellist for the University of Glasgow Library Visiting Research Fellows scheme and from 2015-18 was a committee member of the Friends of Glasgow University Library. She continues as a member of CILIP (inc. Academic & Research Libraries Group, Library & Information History Group, and Rare Books & Special Collections Group); in 2017 she was invited to join the Research Libraries UK (RLUK) Special Collections Advisory Group and in 2020 was invited to consult on the development of OKRE - Opening Knowledge Across Research and Entertainment - a new charity and global hub of expertise bringing together the research sector, entertainment industries and personal lived experience, currently based at the Wellcome. Johanna has close connections to the Society of Northumbrian Scribes, based in North East England, and has run annual practical palaeography events with them since 2015. She previously lectured for the MLitt in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Glasgow, and for the School of Literature and Language (English Studies) at the University of Stirling.

In 2018, Johanna was diagnosed with Stage IV bowel cancer; she continues to balance palliative treatment with her academic work. Since 2021 she has used this lived experience to contribute to Patient and Public Involvement as part of the Patient Advisory Group for Bowel Research UK, and more recently as a member of Bowel Cancer UK's 'Never Too Young' working group; she also works as Patient Educator for the School of Medical Education at King's College London.

• Digital materiality
• Sensory engagement with digital manuscripts / rare books
• The exhibition and communication of written heritage 
• Digitally-enabled scholarship with Special Collections materials
• The history of text technologies
• Materialist philology
• Palaeography and codicology
• Digital editions and editorial theory
• The production and use of written heritage data

List by: Type | Date

2020-21: Digitally Exhibiting Textual Heritage: Investigating the Potential of Digital Technologies for the Display of Manuscripts, Printed Books and Historical Documents. £9998.50: Royal Society of Edinburgh Arts and Humanities Research Workshop Award. Dr J. M. E. Green (Glasgow, PI). 

2020-21: Archives Unlocked: Sharing and Co-Creating Best Practice Experiential Learning and Teaching Models with Archives and Special Collections Materials. £5000.31. University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Development Fund. Dr J. M. E. Green (Glasgow, PI). Extended to 2022 due to Covid-19 Global Pandemic.

2019-20: Digitally Communicating the Medieval Book: An Examination of the Potential and Impact of Social Media Content for Public Engagement with the Materiality of Medieval Written Heritage. $5000. Schoenberg Institute of Manuscript Studies Research Fellowship. Dr J. M.E. Green (Glasgow, PI). Extended to 2022 due to Covid-19 Global Pandemic.

2015-16: The Coming of the Book: Ingenious Digital Impressions. £3,033: Chancellor's Fund Grant.  Dr J. M. E. Green (Glasgow, PI) in collaboration with Glasgow University Library Special Collections. 

2015: Dissecting the Page: Medical Paratexts Conference. £1,535: Wellcome Trust.  Dr Hannah Tweed (Glasgow, PI) with Dr J. M. E. Green and Dr Diane G. Scott (Glasgow, Co-Is). 

2005-2012: Over 10 individually-funded training projects and events totalling £43,086.50. Funders: Colleges of Arts, Social Sciences and (then) Education, and the AHRC CRTI schemes.

Dr Green no longer invites new applications from postgraduates across her areas of expertise but is always happy to discuss the following topics with potential students looking to study with other members of staff. Subjects of particular interest include:

• Book history (inc. palaeography, codicology, and materialist philology)
• Digital materiality
• Sensory engagement with digital manuscripts / rare books
• The exhibition and communication of textual heritage 
• The history of text technologies, analogue to digital
• Digital editions and editorial theory

Current

• Spence, Alison
  Archivally-embedded textiles, digitisation and digital materiality

• Verschuren, Lynn
  Multisensory Engagement with Medieval Museum Collections: Evaluating the Use of Digital at The Burrell. [Co-supervised with Dr Maria Economou (Glasgow), Dr Ian Ruthven (Strathclyde), Dr Martin Halvey (Strathclyde) and David Scott (Glasgow Life)]. Funded by an SGSAH Applied Research Collaboration Studentship.

Dr Green previously contributed to the following courses:

• INFOSTUD1001: Digital Media & Information Studies 1A
• INFOSTUD4003: Books as New Media (Convenor)
• INFOSTUD5028: Records & Evidence (Convenor)
• INFOSTUD4030/5016: Digital Cultural Heritage (Co-Convenor)
• INFOSTUD5063: Museum Learning & Interpretation

Awards:

• University Teaching Excellence Award (Early Career), University and College Level, 2020/21

• 'Best Practice in Online Learning', University of Glasgow SRC Student Teaching Awards, 2020/21

Research fellowships

• 2019 - 2020: Schoenberg Institute of Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Media Appearances and Public Engagement

Interviews and Articles

• Coding Codices Podcast, Digital Medievalist: Material Manuscripts in a Digital World. (Recorded November 2020; published November 2021).
• BBC History Magazine: Subversive Scribes and Killer Rabbits. [Published first in print and then online] (09.2020).
• National Geographic: Chance Blackbeard Discovery Reveals Pirate Reading Habits (05.01.2018)
• Atlas Obscura: The Strange and Grotesque Doodles in the Margins of Medieval Books: When the Edges take Center Stage (09.05.2017)
• BBC Radio 4, 'Today' programme: 'The Mystery of the Medieval Doodle' [highlights] (01.12.16)
• BBC Radio Scotland, 'Good Morning Scotland' programme: 'Why Read Manuscripts via their Margins?' [at: 02:19:53] (01.12.16)
• BBC Radio Wales, 'Good Morning Wales' programme: 'What Can Doodles Tell Us About History?' [at 02.26.07] (01.12.16)

Book History Social Media

• Instagram: @UofGCodicologist

University Roles and Service

Board Member, XR strategy Group (2019-2023)

Learning and Teaching Convenor, Information Studies (2019-21; 2022)

Elected member of Senate and the Senate Appeals Committee (2016-19; re-elected 2019-22). 

Steering Group Member, Wellcome-Funded William Hunter’s Library: A Transcription of the Early Catalogues 

Quadrivium UK Network Member: PGR and ECR Training in Medieval and Early Modern Textual Studies