Towards a Full-Text Historical Digital Library

Abstract

A new generation of digital libraries is now possible based on the large amount of open-access full-text and other rich-media materials available. Such content can be more richly modeled and cross-linked than is possible for traditional document-level digital libraries. For collections which include details of events such as collections of newspapers, structured descriptions could be developed to focus on events. For higher-level historical analysis a combination of content and discourse descriptions is needed. Prior work on composite hypertexts has focused almost exclusively on the relationship of the discourse terms without considering the semantics of the content. Here, we describe a framework and interface widgets that support interaction with a historical text which incorporates both discourse and content descriptions. Further, we consider broader issues of interaction based on rich description of content.

Structured Descriptions of Roles, Activities, and Procedures in the Roman Constitution

“…We suggest that its implementation requires concepts such as looping which are integral to programming languages and business process engineering. While importance of programming language features for ontologies is recognized in SPIN 9 and OWL-S, 10 these are for restricted applications and we believe that a broader integration is needed (see [2,12]).…”

“…Full-text digital libraries could incorporate rich descriptions which allow flexible linking and interaction with the content. [2] showed how a structured passage of Gibbon's well-known Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire could be used in a novel content browser. A formal description of Roman culture and legal systems would be useful because the organization of the government of the Empire and the rights of its citizens are keys for Gibbon's analysis.…”

Methods for user‐centered design and evaluation of text analysis tools in a digital history project

“…Here, the identification of mentions of locations and places clearly does not try to extract "chunks of information" (Thaller, 2012), but to analyze the development of the discourse about these places. Additional ideas exist which can help to model discourses on historical events (Nuessli & Kaplan, 2014), and, on a more general level, on historical trends (Allen & Chu, 2014).…”