Phelps is founding director of EMEL, a non-profit research organization that promotes innovative solutions to challenges in cultural heritage imaging and implements these solutions in projects around the world.  He has provided leadership to multi-spectral imaging projects at the Austrian National Library, the Vatican Library, the National Centre for Manuscripts in Tbilisi, Georgia, and the Cathedral Library of Vercelli, Italy.  He led efforts to develop systems to support fragile manuscripts during digitization.  One of these systems is now installed at St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, where EMEL provides technical consultation

Spectral imaging has emerged as a groundbreaking tool for scholars working with damaged, obscured, and illegible manuscripts. From Codex Vercellensis (4th century) to the diaries of David Livingstone, the 19th century European explorer, spectral imaging has successfully recovered texts that were considered lost. The collaboration of textual scholars and imaging scientists offers opportunity to expand the corpus of texts available for study and fill in missing chapters of history. The session will discuss the contemporary practice of spectral imaging and present results from recent projects