Many Greek and Latin papyri, originally belonging to only one book (be it in roll or codex form), are currently scattered among different libraries. While it is not possible to physically rejoin these fragments as they cannot be moved from their institutions, they may be virtually reunited thanks to the techniques of digitisation, image processing and electronic publishing. This paper focuses on some issues – emerged from the work of my MA dissertation – that virtual reunification of Greek and Latin papyri presents. Firstly, I propose a workflow for the creation of a digital edition of virtually rejoined fragments, by applying the model of virtual reunification recently suggested by R. Punzalan in Understanding Virtual Reunification (2014), the first systematic study on this topic. Also, as a principal reference point among the existing projects, I follow the Sinaiticus Project website, which, similarly, deals with an ancient Greek manuscript now dispersed in different institutions; however, while the Sinaiticus Project is exclusively dedicated to that artefact, the edition here proposed includes the possibility to be widened, in order to allow researchers to possibly include more reunified papyri in the future. Secondly, I propose some recommendations that can be followed by the owning institutions in order to digitise their fragments according to a common strategy. Finally, I focus on how a virtual reunification of papyrus fragments can be technically achieved – in other words, how the transcription code can present unified information about the papyrus as a whole and mark the parts of text belonging to each fragment. This project will hopefully help researchers study papyri divided among different libraries in a more systematic way, thanks to the availability of an electronic edition including the whole text and images of the virtually reunited fragments, and thanks to a consolidation of metadata.

Many Greek and Latin papyri, originally belonging to only one book (be it in roll or codex form), are currently scattered among different libraries. While it is not possible to physically rejoin these fragments as they cannot be moved from their institutions, they may be virtually reunited thanks to the techniques of digitisation, image processing and electronic publishing. This paper focuses on some issues – emerged from the work of my MA dissertation – that virtual reunification of Greek and Latin papyri presents. Firstly, I propose a workflow for the creation of a digital edition of virtually rejoined fragments, by applying the model of virtual reunification recently suggested by R. Punzalan in Understanding Virtual Reunification (2014), the first systematic study on this topic. Also, as a principal reference point among the existing projects, I follow the Sinaiticus Project website, which, similarly, deals with an ancient Greek manuscript now dispersed in different institutions; however, while the Sinaiticus Project is exclusively dedicated to that artefact, the edition here proposed includes the possibility to be widened, in order to allow researchers to possibly include more reunified papyri in the future. Secondly, I propose some recommendations that can be followed by the owning institutions in order to digitise their fragments according to a common strategy. Finally, I focus on how a virtual reunification of papyrus fragments can be technically achieved – in other words, how the transcription code can present unified information about the papyrus as a whole and mark the parts of text belonging to each fragment. This project will hopefully help researchers study papyri divided among different libraries in a more systematic way, thanks to the availability of an electronic edition including the whole text and images of the virtually reunited fragments, and thanks to a consolidation of metadata.

In mixed-focus collaboration, group members create content both individually as a kind of groundwork for discussion and further processing as well as directly together in group work sessions. In case of individual creation, separate documents and contents need to be merged to receive an overall solution. In our work, we focus on mixed-focus collaboration using mobile devices, especially smartphones, to create and merge content. Instead of using emails or messenger services to share content within a group, we describe three different mobile device-based interaction techniques for merging that use built-in sensors to enable ad-hoc collaboration and that are easy and eyes-free to perform. We conducted a user study to investigate these merging interactions. Overall, 21 participants tested the interactions and evaluated task load and User Experience (UX) of the proposed device-based interactions. Furthermore, they compared the interactions with a common way to share content, namely writing an email to send attached content. Participants gave valuable user feedback and stated that our merging interaction techniques were much easier to perform. Furthermore, we found that they were much faster, less demanding, and had a greater UX than email.