In recent years, libraries and archives all around the world have increased their efforts to digitize historical manuscripts. To integrate the manuscripts into digital libraries, pattern recognition and machine learning methods are needed to extract and index the contents of the scanned images.

The unique compendium describes the outcome of the HisDoc research project, a pioneering attempt to study the whole processing chain of layout analysis, handwriting recognition, and retrieval of historical manuscripts. This description is complemented with an overview of other related research projects, in order to convey the current state of the art in the field and outline future trends.

This must-have volume is a relevant reference work for librarians, archivists and computer scientists.