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

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19 when digitiz<strong>in</strong>g early modern books, a project needs to determ<strong>in</strong>e how much functionality users will require from a digital facsimile and how much human <strong>in</strong>tervention will be required to create it. In analyz<strong>in</strong>g these questions, Rydberg-Cox proposed five possible approaches: (1) image books with simple page images; (2) image books with m<strong>in</strong>imal structural data; (3) image front transcriptions (such as those found <strong>in</strong> the Mak<strong>in</strong>g of America 58 project) with page images that have searchable uncorrected OCR; (4) carefully edited and tagged transcriptions (generally marked up <strong>in</strong> XML); and (5) scholarly and critical editions. Ultimately, the project decided to create sample texts <strong>in</strong> all of these genres except that of the scholarly critical edition because of the cost of creat<strong>in</strong>g such editions. The decision to digitize the text, rather than just provide page images with limited OCR, raised its own issues, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g the need to manually photograph rather than scan pages and how to address characters and glyphs that could not be represented by Unicode. They had to create a method that could be used by data entry contractors to represent characters as they typed up texts, and the first step was to create a catalog of all the brevigraphs that appeared <strong>in</strong> the pr<strong>in</strong>ted books and that assigned a unique entity identifier to each nonstandard character that data entry personnel could use to represent the glyph. In addition to this catalog, a number of computational tools were created to assist the data entry operators: Because the expansion of these abbreviations is an extremely time-consum<strong>in</strong>g and pa<strong>in</strong>stak<strong>in</strong>g task, we developed three tools to facilitate the tagg<strong>in</strong>g process. These tools suggest possible expansions for Lat<strong>in</strong> abbreviations and brevigraphs, help identify words that are divided across l<strong>in</strong>es, and separate words that are jo<strong>in</strong>ed as the results of irregular spac<strong>in</strong>g. All three programs can return results <strong>in</strong> HTML for human readability or by XML <strong>in</strong> response to remote procedure call as part of a program to automatically expand abbreviations <strong>in</strong> these texts (Rydberg-Cox 2009). Another important po<strong>in</strong>t raised by Rydberg-Cox was that while the project needed to develop tools such as this, if such tools were shared <strong>in</strong> a larger <strong>in</strong>frastructure, they could be reused by the numerous projects digitiz<strong>in</strong>g Lat<strong>in</strong> books. Ultimately, Rydberg-Cox concluded that this work showed that a large-scale project that created image-front editions (e.g., us<strong>in</strong>g uncorrected data that were manually typed to support search<strong>in</strong>g rather than uncorrected OCR) could be affordably managed. In the workflow of his own project, Rydberg-Cox found that the most significant expense was hav<strong>in</strong>g human editors tag abbreviations and a second editor proofread the work. Nonetheless, Rydberg-Cox conv<strong>in</strong>c<strong>in</strong>gly argued that a certa<strong>in</strong> level of transcription is typically worth the cost because it provides better searchability and, even more important, supports automatic hypertext and l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g to dictionaries and other read<strong>in</strong>g support tools. Such tools can help students and scholars read texts <strong>in</strong> Greek and Lat<strong>in</strong> without expert knowledge of such languages, and they are particularly important for early modern books, many of which have never been translated. Furthermore, Rydberg-Cox noted that larger collections of lightly edited text often reach far larger audiences than small collections of closely edited texts or critical editions. In addition, this model does not preclude the development of critical editions, for as long as the images and transcriptions are made available as open content they can be reused by scholars <strong>in</strong> support of their own editions. In contrast to us<strong>in</strong>g digitized images and typed <strong>in</strong> transcriptions, recent research reported by Simone Mar<strong>in</strong>ai (2009) explored the use of automatic text <strong>in</strong>dex<strong>in</strong>g and retrieval methods to support 58 http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/
20 <strong>in</strong>formation retrieval from early modern books. She tested her methods on the Lat<strong>in</strong> Gutenberg Bible and reported the same problems as Schibel and Rydberg-Cox, namely, the high density of text on each page, the limited spac<strong>in</strong>g between words, and, most important, the use of many abbreviations and ligatures. She noted that such issues limit not just automatic techniques but human read<strong>in</strong>g as well. The Gutenberg Bible alone <strong>in</strong>cluded 75 types of ligatures, with two dense columns of text per page, each conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g 42 l<strong>in</strong>es. The methodology proposed, Mar<strong>in</strong>ai hoped, would support <strong>in</strong>formation retrieval beyond this one text: … our aim is not to deal only with the Gutenberg Bible, but to design tools that can process early pr<strong>in</strong>ted books, that can adopt different ligatures and abbreviations. We therefore designed a text retrieval tool that deals with the text <strong>in</strong> a pr<strong>in</strong>ted document <strong>in</strong> a different way, try<strong>in</strong>g to identify occurrences of query words rather than recogniz<strong>in</strong>g the whole text (Mar<strong>in</strong>ai 2009). Instead of segment<strong>in</strong>g words, Mar<strong>in</strong>ai’s technique extracted “character objects” from documents that were then clustered together us<strong>in</strong>g self-organiz<strong>in</strong>g maps so that “symbolic” classes could be assigned to <strong>in</strong>dexed objects. User query terms were selected from “one-word” images <strong>in</strong> the collection that were then compared aga<strong>in</strong>st “<strong>in</strong>dexed character objects with a Dynamic Time Warp<strong>in</strong>g (DTW) based approach.” This “query by example” approach did face one major challenge <strong>in</strong> that it could not f<strong>in</strong>d occurrences of query words that were pr<strong>in</strong>ted with different ligatures. As this subsection <strong>in</strong>dicates, the development of tools for the automatic recognition and process<strong>in</strong>g of Lat<strong>in</strong> is a research area that still has many challenges. Sanskrit The issues <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> the digitization of Sanskrit texts and the development of tools to study and present them onl<strong>in</strong>e are so complicated that an annual <strong>in</strong>ternational Sanskrit computational l<strong>in</strong>guistics symposium was established <strong>in</strong> 2007. 59 This subsection provides an overview of some of the major digital Sanskrit projects and current issues <strong>in</strong> digitization <strong>in</strong> that language. The major digital Sanskrit project onl<strong>in</strong>e is the Sanskrit Library, a “digital library dedicated to facilitat<strong>in</strong>g education and research <strong>in</strong> Sanskrit by provid<strong>in</strong>g access to digitized primary texts <strong>in</strong> Sanskrit and computerized research and study tools to analyze and maximize the utility of digitized Sanskrit text.” 60 The Sanskrit Library is part of the International Digital Sanskrit Library Integration project, which seeks to connect various Sanskrit digital archives and tool projects as well as to establish encod<strong>in</strong>g standards, enhance manuscript access, and develop OCR technology and display software for Devanagari text. On an <strong>in</strong>dividual basis, the Sanskrit Library supports philological research and education <strong>in</strong> Vedic and Classical Sanskrit language and literature and provides access to Sanskrit texts <strong>in</strong> digital form. The Sanskrit Library currently conta<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong>dependent-study Sanskrit readers, grammatical literature, morphological software, <strong>in</strong>structional materials, and a digital version of W. D. Whitney’s The Roots, Verb-Forms, and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language. The Library’s current areas of research <strong>in</strong>clude “l<strong>in</strong>guistic issues <strong>in</strong> encod<strong>in</strong>g, computational phonology and morphology, OCR for Indic scripts, and markup of digitized Sanskrit lexica.” Free access to this library is provided, but users must register. 59 http://www.spr<strong>in</strong>gerl<strong>in</strong>k.com/content/p665684g40h7/p=967bbca4213c4cb6988c40c0e3ae3a95&pi=0 60 http://sanskritlibrary.org/
Page 1 and 2: "Rome Wasn
Page 3 and 4: ii ISBN 978-1-932326-38-3 CLIR Publ
Page 5 and 6: iv EpiDoc-Based Digital Epigraphy P
Page 7 and 8: vi ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alison Babeu ha
Page 9 and 10: viii PBW PCA PDB PDL PHI PLANETS PN
Page 11 and 12: x pursuit of knowledge about the an
Page 13 and 14: 2 and intellectual
Page 15 and 16: 4 associations to work together, an
Page 17 and 18: 6 briefly explore issues that are n
Page 19 and 20: 8 for English translations of Greek
Page 21 and 22: 10 is created of the entire bibliog
Page 23 and 24: 12 directory of more than 2,100 cat
Page 25 and 26: 14 generated by the decision tree p
Page 27 and 28: 16 The image-registration algorithm
Page 29: 18 Schibel and Rydberg-Cox argued t
Page 33 and 34: 22 In ancient manuscripts, Sanskrit
Page 35 and 36: 24 algorithms; ins
Page 37 and 38: 26 Markov Models (MEMM) 82 and outp
Page 39 and 40: 28 One major project to recently em
Page 41 and 42: 30 developed a cuneiform sign reper
Page 43 and 44: 32 and prayers), and edited texts a
Page 45 and 46: 34 Digital critical editions, howev
Page 47 and 48: 36 While these requirements may see
Page 49 and 50: 38 many discrete texts, in<
Page 51 and 52: 40 examine how l<s
Page 53 and 54: 42 The second fact that Rob
Page 55 and 56: 44 “multimedia scholarly editions
Page 57 and 58: 46 different apparatuses. In Bosche
Page 59 and 60: 48 individual text
Page 61 and 62: 50 In these cases we must provide a
Page 63 and 64: 52 First, it utilizes a nearest nei
Page 65 and 66: 54 entirely pre-searched for each l
Page 67 and 68: 56 As this research in</str
Page 69 and 70: 58 the inscription
Page 71 and 72: 60 Text Min<strong
Page 73 and 74: 62 This manual analysis provided a
Page 75 and 76: 64 As illustrated by this def<stron
Page 77 and 78: 66 archaeology as a discipl
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70 for re-use is a simple slogan, b
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72 framework to in
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74 then mapped to the CRM-EH so tha
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76 tDAR also stores all resources <
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78 Many look to their in</s
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80 Although the multidiscipl<strong
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82 computer science can make it pos
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84 were created after this time. A
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86 transparency, accessibility, ava
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88 (Research Archive for Ancient Sc
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90 This challenge of not just digit
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92 Part of the research of the Plei
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94 After correctin
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96 Epigraphy Overview: Epigraphy Da
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98 step, because epigraphic texts s
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100 text and to previous annotation
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102 and squeezes as well as a selec
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104 original); typ
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106 To begin this
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108 better set the in</stro
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110 Another related project that ha
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112 used to point
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114 names in texts
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116 and Manuscripts (VRE-SDM) 378 s
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118 level of storage in</st
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120 simplicity, and sensible file n
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122 compliant DTD and schema. 393 I
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124 While the advanced document-rec
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126 Another significant manuscript
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128 compelled to operate in
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130 Cayless thus developed a method
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132 must consider commercial and en
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134 standard developed for the desc
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136 to standard catalogs, identific
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138 present an extension and comb<s
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140 scholars in th
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142 described as the amicitia papyr
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144 to a full text transcription wh
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146 The final majo
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148 One is toward openness; the oth
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150 this idea of personal ownership
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152 prototype 512 in</stron
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154 other assertions made about par
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156 The conclusion drawn from this
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158 and that “is main</st
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160 philology available at the webs
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162 descriptions that provides scho
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164 of multilingua
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166 Another major methodological is
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168 ancient historians. Network ana
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170 Bradley and Short (2005) have o
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172 “apparently disconnected and
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174 sources used and their abbrevia
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176 resources, inc
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178 materials could be found, a rec
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180 or more documents (69 percent)
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182 This work tends to focus on des
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184 A related poin
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186 “infer user
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188 accessed; few providers, if any
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190 information so
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192 features. In addition, while pa
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194 postdoctoral students, who were
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196 computers by ancient historians
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198 Demos (a growin</strong
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200 database of this encyclopedia c
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202 academia.” At the same time,
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204 granted their views of the pote
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206 science and use ICT occasionall
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208 also declared that the m<strong
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210 were exceptionally diverse, as
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212 across virtual collections of d
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214 tradition of European literatur
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216 the related MILARQ project, 649
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218 initial fund<s
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220 SPQR—Supportin</stron
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222 environments in</strong
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224 become less “localized” wit
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226 methods,” Cohen et al. expla<
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228 One might have presumed that ou
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230 This lack of deeper understand<
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232 expertise, tools, experience, a
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234 All link<stron
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236 of architecture, tools and serv
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238 reported that eSAD was develop<
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240 semantic tools that would make
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242 Sustainable Pr
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244 A recent ARL report that explor
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246 organizations and fundi
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248 throughout this review, i.e., o
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250 commercial providers. At the sa
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252 representations beyond the bord
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254 such as Vindol
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256 that the question of in
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258 Linguistic Com
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260 resources and technology overvi
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262 According to B
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264 support the main</stron
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266 Interoperability”). 763 The m
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268 as the point o
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270 This architecture makes it easy
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272 [Aschenbrenner et al. 2008]. As
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274 Editions.” Advances i
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276 [Bodard et al. 2009]. Bodard, G
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278 [Bulger et al. 2011]. Bulger, M
Page 291 and 292:
280 [Choudhury and Stin</st
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282 [Crane et al. 2009a]. Crane, Gr
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284 [Dué and Ebbott 2009]. Dué, C
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286 [Flaten 2009]. Flaten, Arne R.
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288 [Hardwick 2000]. Hardwick, Lorn
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290 Conference on E-Science Worksho
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292 [Lockyear 2007]. Lockyear, Kris
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294 Cambridge, MA: Association for
Page 307 and 308:
296 [Ntzios et al. 2007]. Ntzios, K
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298 [Reddy and Crane 2006]. Reddy,
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300 [Rydberg-Cox 2009]. Rydberg-Cox
Page 313 and 314:
302 [Smith 2010]. Smith, D. Neel.
Page 315 and 316:
304 and the Canadian Academic Commu
Page 317 and 318:
306 [Wallom et al. 2009]. Wallom, D
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