An overview of work currently being done by the Digital Manuscript Technology group. This presentation was given to the 2013 CLIR fellows in medieval data curation, and is a synthesis of earlier presentations, some of which were co-authored with Robert Sanderson.

1. Digital Medieval Data Curation
CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Seminar
Bryn Mawr, 2013
Benjamin Albritton, Stanford University Libraries
blalbrit@stanford.edu
@bla222

2. Current State: A World of Silos
Roman de la Rose Parker on the Web e-codices And so on…

3. Data Interoperability
• Break down silos
• Separate data from applications
• Share data models and
programming interfaces
• Enable interactions at the tool and
repository level

4. Designing Modular Repositories and
Tools
Image Data (Canonical)
Image
Viewer
Discovery
Annotation
Non-image data (Canonical)
Transcription
Image Viewer
Image
Analysis
Discovery Tool X?
Repository
Repository
User
Interface
3rd-Party
Tools

5. Image Data (Canonical)
Image
Viewer
Discovery
Annotation
Non-image data (Canonical)
Transcription
Image Viewer
Image
Analysis
Discovery Tool X?
Repository
Repository
User
Interface
3rd-Party
Tools
Designing Modular Repositories and
Tools

6. Image Data (Canonical)
Image
Viewer
Discovery
Annotation
Non-image data (Canonical)
Transcription
Image Viewer
Image
Analysis
Discovery Tool X?
Designing Modular Repositories and
Tools

7. Iterative Interactions

8. Multiple Data Sources
• Existing structured data (catalogs)
• User-added
– Comments
– Transcriptions
– Etc.
• Digital images
• Machine processing

9. Motivating Questions
What does this mean for medieval data?
• How do we rethink medieval object data in a
shared, distributed, global space?
• How do we enable collaboration and encourage
engagement?
• How do we deal with tools that are producing
new data on digital surrogates that are
implicitly about a real world object?

10. Transcribing from Digital Surrogates
La Terre de Secille

11. Naïve Approach: Attach Transcription to Image
One problem example: Multiple Representations
CCC 26 f. iiiR

12. Naïve Approach: Attach Transcription to Image
One problem example: Multiple Representations
CCC 26 f. iiiR Fold A Open

13. Naïve Approach: Attach Transcription to Image
One problem example: Multiple Representations
CCC 26 f. iiiR Fold A Open Fold A and B Open

14. Naïve Approach: Attach Transcription to Image
One problem example: Multiple Representations
CCC 26 f. iiiR Fold A Open Fold A and B Open f. iiiV

15. The Shared Canvas
• Represents a real world thing we
want to “talk” about
• Has a unique name
• http://dms-data.stanford.edu/Parker/CCC026/canvas-12

16. Data Model: SharedCanvas
http://www.shared-canvas.org

17. Data is “about” a real thing

18. Canvas Paradigm
• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display
• Makes explicit that the image is a surrogate

19. Open Annotation Model
• Annotation (a document)
• Body (the ‘comment’ of the annotation)
• Target (the resource the Body is ‘about’)

20. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas
• The Canvas represents the empty page
• Annotation links Image with Canvas

21. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas
• Annotation links Text with Canvas

22. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas

23. Model: Missing Pages

24. Medieval Data Use-Cases: A Sampler
• Structured data from existing sources
• Transcription and glyphs
• Structured data from new sources

25. Structured Data from Existing Sources
A Catalog of the Manuscripts of
Salisbury Cathedral Library

26. Drives Discovery

27. Transcription:
T-PEN (Saint Louis University) http://t-pen.org
• Transcription tool
• Provides image parsing
– Columns
BNF fr. 9221 – column parsing

28. T-PEN (Saint Louis University)
http://t-pen.org
• Transcription tool
• Provides image parsing
– Columns
– Lines
BNF fr. 9221 – line parsing

29. T-PEN (Saint Louis University)
http://t-pen.org
BNF fr. 9221 – transcription view

30. Drives Full-Text Search
http://t-pen.org/TPEN

31. … and other interfaces
http://stanford.edu/~blalbrit/v-machine-2/samples/DamedequiRF5.xml

32. T-PEN’s PaleoTool
BNF fr. 1586 – glyph parsing

33. Results for “matching” glyphs

34. Glyphs with multiple letters

35. Comparing results across manuscripts
BNF fr. 1586 CCCC 324

36. User-created Structured Data
Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r
• Each row = 1 day (January 1, here)
• Lists the feast of the Circumcision
• Optionally provides additional information

37. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

38. Data capture in T-PEN
http:t-pen.org – Saint Louis University

39. Front-end: Exhibit
http://guillaumedemachaut.com/kalendar/sharedkalendar.html
Simple (really simple) Exhibit based on kalendar transcriptions
(Exhibit: http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit/)

40. For each record:

41. Enabling rapid comparison
Two mss. include the entry “Thimotheus apostel”

42. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

43. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

44. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

45. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

46. A Sea of Manuscript Data
• Thousands of manuscripts currently available
interoperably, with more coming rapidly
• Discovery data is a mixed bag
• Tools provide data back into the system that
can be re-used
• New data drives new discovery, new
interfaces, and new visualization challenges
• Management and manipulation of that “wild”
data is a serious challenge