Dear all,
Apologies for cross-posting.

Please find below the details of next week's CeRch seminar: Linking Images and Text in Digital Editions of Vetusta Monumenta (Kristen Schuster, University of Missouri, Columbia)

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 from 6:15 PM to 7:30 PM (GMT)
Anatomy Theatre and Museum, King's College London:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/atm/location.aspx

Attendance is free and open to all, but registration is requested:
https://www.eventbrite.com/event/8348401293

The seminar will be followed by wine and nibbles.

All the very best,
Valentina Asciutti

 

15th October: Kristen Schuster, University of Missouri, Columbia 
Linking Images and Text in Digital Editions of Vetusta Monumenta

Abstract: Published by the Society of Antiquarians of London Vetusta Monumenta is a compendium of text and images describing and representing ancient artifacts and buildings from Europe (primarily England).  Created over a number of years multiple volumes and editions of the work exist, three of which now reside in Ellis Library, Special Collections, at the University of Missouri Columbia.  Although high quality scans have been made, currently only limited descriptive, administrative or technical metadata exists. In an effort to remedy this situation a group of librarians and English Department faculty have begun collaborating to synthesize scholarly and historical commentary with images in order to explore the potential of linked data. Beginning as a ‘simple’ digital libraries project, it has since evolved into an exploration of the potential for descriptive metadata to enhance the value of digitized materials. 
In particular, this project has made it necessary to ask: how should images and text interact in a digital library? Over the past decade questions like this have catalyzed a concerted exploration of information seeking behaviors in digital environments. While systems for negotiating text or images exist, each schema, protocol or controlled vocabulary is rather specialized and, thus, depends on users acquiring information or visual literacy skills – as opposed to a synthesis of the two. The collaboration between librarians and scholars has made it possible to re-contextualize the idea of linked data by directly linking scholarship to the materials it references. Using the Visual Resource Associations (VRA) VRA Core schema and Cataloging Cultural Objects content standard it has been possible to exploit the accuracy and extensibility of OCLCs Dublin Core schema through the use of SCALAR, a new digital library interface developed by the University of Southern California.  As an ongoing project participants are endeavoring to use the digital surrogates of images to enhance the readability and value of written scholarship by associating text and images in an innovate manner.   

Bio: Kristen is currently a second year doctoral student in the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri Columbia. Her experiences as a librarian have primarily consisted of metadata management in visual resource departments, which has been quite useful in her current work and research in the area of digital humanities. She began collaborating with the English Department last spring to develop a digital edition of three volumes of Vetusta Monumenta, an antiquarian text of prints and essays on ancient British monuments published by the Society of Antiquaries of London.