Noted scientist, librarian at Princeton U, dies in crash in Scotland

PRINCETON, NJ – William Noel, a Princeton University librarian and advocate for open data and information accessibility, has died in a crash in Scotland. Noel was 58.

On April 10, Noel was walking when he was hit by a van in Edinburgh. He was taken to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, where he died from his injuries on April 29, according to Police Scotland.

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A nurse helped Noel, but left before police could arrive. She later assisted authorities in the investigation. The 40-year-old driver of the van was arrested and released pending further investigation, police said.

Noel lived in Philadelphia and was the John T. Maltsberger III’55 Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at the Princeton University Library.

He grew up in England and was an authority on medieval manuscripts. He was a leading figure among institutional librarians and led many projects to digitize and data mine premodern manuscripts. He worked tirelessly to put vast amounts of information online to make knowledge accessible to the public.

He also served as chairman of the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries.

Noel studied at Cambridge University. he graduated from Downing College and completed his PhD, graduating in 1992.

“While Will was a leading scholar, he was at the forefront of the digital humanities. He is most closely associated with the Archimedes Palimpsest project, published as The Archimedes Codex in 2007 with the classicist Reviel Netz, which used the latest technology to decipher a lost work by Archimedes, hidden beneath a later medieval text published in 1998 was rediscovered. of Art History said in a statement.

“Will was an energetic and charming force for manuscript studies with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and his death was met with dismay by the medieval community. He was one of the first students of the author of this short memoir, a valued friend and a continuation of Cambridge’s tradition of medieval manuscript study.

Before coming to Princeton, Noel was Associate Vice Provost for External Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania and UPenn’s library director for rare collections and manuscripts.

He also did stints as curator of manuscripts and rare books at the Walter Art Museum in Baltimore and as assistant curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

One of Noel’s most notable contributions was to the Archimedes Palimpsest Project, where he worked with a group of scholars to recover the handwriting of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, which was found in a 13th-century Byzantine prayer book. The project is now available online.

Noel spoke about the project in his Ted Talk in 2012. He highlighted the effort it took to reveal the manuscript hidden among other medieval texts and the decision to release it without copyright restrictions.

After his Ted Talk, he was honored as a Champion of Change by the Obama administration.

His death remains under investigation, authorities in Scotland say.

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