A Comparative Kalendar: Building a Research Tool for Medieval Books of Hours from Distributed

Resources

Benjamin AlbrittonStanford Universityblalbrit@stanford.edu@bla222

Robert SandersonLos Alamos National Laboratoryrsanderson@lanl.gov @azaroth42

James Ginther, Saint Louis UniversityMartin Foys, Drew UniversityShannon Bradshaw, Drew University

Distributed Resources

• Digital Manuscript Interoperability– SharedCanvas– International Image Interoperability Framework– Open Annotation (separate project, but we use it)

• Multiple Repositories• Multiple cataloging and discovery approaches• Goal: Exercise the promise of interoperability

for specialist analytic tools

A Sea of Manuscript Data• Interoperability – at lowest level, ability for

third-party tools to consume content from multiple sources in an identical way

http://sul-reader-test.stanford.edu/el-camino

A Sea of Manuscript Data• Interoperability – at next level, tools provide

data back into the system that can be re-used

T-PEN (http://t-pen.org): transcription, line-parsing, RDF export

A Sea of Manuscript Data• Interoperability – at next level, tools provide

data back into the system that can be re-used

DM (http://dm.drew.edu/dmproject/): general annotation

A Sea of Manuscript Data

• Currently ca. 2500 manuscripts available via SharedCanvas / IIIF

• At current pace, many thousands more by late 2014

• Mixed bag of metadata, quality, content, etc.• A challenge to the traditional “index”• Few are interested in “all” – many are

interested in specific subsets

Liturgical Books and Structured Data

Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r

Kalendars• Ubiquitous• Structure• Daily list of liturgical events• Arranged in a perpetual

calendar• Often tabular

• Content varies according to• Date• Region of use or production• Etc

• Minor variations transmit a great deal of information

Liturgical Books and Structured Data

Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r

Pilot Goals

• Build an extensible navigation and discovery tool for books containing kalendars

• Using existing image data from interoperable repositories and user-generated data from interoperable tools

• Focusing on the key elements provided in the kalendar: dates and liturgical events

Rethinking Digital Facsimiles

Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r

• Distributed• Linked Data and Resources• Single Global Space

• Interactive• Consumer as Producer

• Interoperable• Seamlessly Interconnected• Open Source, Open Content

Rethinking Digital Facsimiles

Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r

• Distributed• Linked Data and Resources• Single Global Space

• Interactive• Consumer as Producer

• Interoperable• Seamlessly Interconnected• Open Source, Open Content

• … 100% Buzzword Compliant

Model: Canvas Paradigm• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display

Model: Canvas Paradigm• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display• A SharedCanvas's top left and bottom right corners correspond to the equivalent corners of a [rectangular bounding box around a] page

Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas

• The Canvas represents the empty page• Annotation links Image with Canvas

Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas

• Annotation links Text with Canvas

Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas

Model: Missing Pages

Distributed Resources / Distributed Environments

Kalendar Data for Extraction

Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r

• Each row = 1 day (January 1, here)• Lists the feast of the Circumcision• Optionally provides additional information

Data capture in T-PEN

SharedKalendar?

• Annotations as re-useable data• Every record for the transcribed Kalendars

becomes a means for organization and discovery within the available manuscripts

• Offers:– Quick comparison of known content– Ability to present line-level context• Across multiple objects

– Across multiple repositories and projects

Distributed Resources / Distributed Environments

Front-end: Exhibit

http://guillaumedemachaut.com/kalendar/sharedkalendar.htmlSimple (really simple) Exhibit based on kalendar transcriptions(Exhibit: http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit/)

For each record:

Basic informationPLUS:• Link out to a canvas

viewer implementation showing:• Transcription in

context• Full page of kalendar• Ability to move

around w/in the manuscript

For each record:

Enabling rapid comparison

Two mss. include the entry “Thimotheus apostel”

Distributed Resources / Distributed Environments

SharedCanvas Demo Implementation

http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

SharedCanvas Demo Implementation

http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

SharedCanvas Demo Implementation

http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

SharedCanvas Demo Implementation

http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

Distributed Resources / Distributed Environments

Pitfalls

• Data creation (Annotations)– Interfaces– Reliability• Somewhat ameliorated by being exposed easily

– Willingness (or lack thereof)• Data availability– Lack of interoperability (improving rapidly)– Paywalls

Additional Next Steps

• More manuscripts• More transcriptions• Authority lists• User feedback from Books of Hours scholars• Collaboration

Thank you

• Benjamin Albritton– blalbrit@stanford.edu– @bla222

• Robert Sanderson– rsanderson@lanl.gov– @azaroth42

• DMS Interoperability– dms-public@lists.stanford.edu

• SharedCanvas– http://www.shared-canvas.org

• OpenAnnotation– http://www.w3.org/community/op

enannotation/

• IIIF– http://lib.stanford.edu/iiif

• SharedKalendar (temporary)– http://guillaumedemachaut.com/k

alendar/sharedkalendar.html

Questions?