Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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sources used and their abbreviations, and a foreword and reverse <strong>in</strong>dex of the Greek names <strong>in</strong> that
volume. All of the LGPN data (250,000 published records) are stored <strong>in</strong> a relational database, and each
record typically <strong>in</strong>cludes a normalized primary name form, sex of the <strong>in</strong>dividual named, place and date
of attestation (dates can vary widely), and the bibliographical reference or references as to where this
name was found. 553 This website also <strong>in</strong>cludes a useful <strong>in</strong>troduction to Greek names, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g their
history, formation, and mean<strong>in</strong>gs, and an image archive that <strong>in</strong>cludes tombstones, vases, <strong>in</strong>scriptions,
and other sources that have been used for names. A searchable database called the “LGPN Onl<strong>in</strong>e” can
be used to search the more than 35,000 names published <strong>in</strong> LGPN I-IV and the revised LGPN II. Work
is also under way to develop a TEI XML schema for the LGPN and to convert the entire database <strong>in</strong>to
TEI-XML for long-term preservation and <strong>in</strong>teroperability.
A recent presentation by Matthews and Rahtz (2008) has provided extensive details on the future plans
of the LGPN regard<strong>in</strong>g TEI-XML, how the resource has already been used <strong>in</strong> various types of classical
research, 554 and how it may be used <strong>in</strong> future research. As these authors described, the LGPN has lived
through various generations of humanities comput<strong>in</strong>g s<strong>in</strong>ce it orig<strong>in</strong>ated <strong>in</strong> the 1970s. The most
important part of this long history was the development of a database <strong>in</strong> the 1980s that was “structured
to reflect and provide access to all the research components of an LGPN record, which <strong>in</strong> the books are
subsumed under name-head<strong>in</strong>gs” (Matthews and Rahtz 2008). While this database has been important
<strong>in</strong> enforc<strong>in</strong>g some format consistency and was used to generate the pr<strong>in</strong>ted volumes, Matthews and
Rahtz argued that its research potential has yet to be fully exploited. 555 The last decade of LGPN
development has <strong>in</strong>volved reach<strong>in</strong>g the follow<strong>in</strong>g goals: the serialization of the relational database <strong>in</strong>to
XML; the support of onl<strong>in</strong>e search<strong>in</strong>g us<strong>in</strong>g an XML database; and the creation of a new data model
that will emphasize collaboration.
The future plans of the LGPN are to convert their electronic lexicon <strong>in</strong>to a system entirely based on
TEI-XML. This work is be<strong>in</strong>g undertaken not only to create an IT <strong>in</strong>frastructure that will support the
preservation and ma<strong>in</strong>tenance of the LGPN data but also to enable these data to play a larger role <strong>in</strong> an
e-research environment and to allow the LGPN to play a “central role <strong>in</strong> determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g standards for
encod<strong>in</strong>g names <strong>in</strong> documents” through TEI/XML and thus achieve greater <strong>in</strong>teroperability with digital
resources worldwide (Matthews and Rahtz 2008). This “XML phase” of the LGPN work has led to the
def<strong>in</strong>ition of a customized TEI-XML schema that will be used to preserve an archival form of the
lexicon data <strong>in</strong> a digital repository. This work co<strong>in</strong>cided with and thus <strong>in</strong>fluenced the TEI’s recent
revision of their module relat<strong>in</strong>g to names and dates. 556 The new module models “persons, places and
organizations as first class objects” so the LGPN schema is thus a fully “conformant pure subset of the
TEI” (Matthews and Rahtz 2008). The LGPN has also usefully def<strong>in</strong>ed five potential levels of data
<strong>in</strong>terchange: character <strong>in</strong>terchange, character encod<strong>in</strong>g, standardized structural markup, standardized
semantic markup, and <strong>in</strong>formation l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g.
The LGPN has created an experimental database 557 that conta<strong>in</strong>s an XML version of the LGPN <strong>in</strong> a
s<strong>in</strong>gle XML database and uses XQuery to jo<strong>in</strong> name, place, and person data to support new forms of
sophisticated search<strong>in</strong>g. They are currently deliver<strong>in</strong>g search results as HTML, TEI-XML, and KML
for use <strong>in</strong> Google Maps and GoogleEarth, Atom feeds for use <strong>in</strong> RSS readers, and JSON (for use <strong>in</strong>
553 http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/onl<strong>in</strong>e/documents/TEIXML
554 The LGPN has hosted two <strong>in</strong>ternational conferences regard<strong>in</strong>g its use, and the results have been published
(http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/publications/<strong>in</strong>dex.html) <strong>in</strong> two books. The topics covered <strong>in</strong>cluded l<strong>in</strong>guistics, religious history, and demographic studies,
among many others.
555 For a fuller description of this database and the conversion of the pr<strong>in</strong>ted slips, see http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/onl<strong>in</strong>e/computerization/.
556 http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ND.html
557 The experimental database can be accessed here: http://clas-lgpn2.classics.ox.ac.uk/