Digital Methods of Collection Research

In this Digital Laboratory subproject, we are developing and adapting tools which help facilitate the indexing of historical collections in terms of scientific datafication. To this end, we are further developing the cross-institutional digital structure and opening it up to new research activities. An important focus lies on research data management which serves to optimise the quality and usability of data generated by the research projects. The goal is to create an interoperable, high-quality data pool which can be subsequently used by the collection-based research projects despite their varied themes.

This project supports the MWW → case studies by providing semi-automatic processes of full-text recognition, data enhancement and integration of → semantic web technologies. Building on the collected findings, we provide exploratory access to the data pool (for example, via methods of visualisation) to innovatively support its analysis and interpretation. We then convert the experimental processes applied at the project level into standardised workflows and integrate them into the → Virtual Research Room.

We are also expanding the → cross-collection-based search function to include additional data formats which can more optimally represent the semantics of the digital collections. Another focus is placed on digital publication. In order to offer a suitable infrastructure for the publication of research findings, the project is helping to build an open-access publication platform and to further develop the technical capabilities of the → Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften (ZfdG).

Former Staff

• Marcus Baumgarten