Digitization

Purloining Derrida? Authority, materiality and the right to philosophy in Argentina

by Francis Jervis

This paper examines the prosecution of an Argentine philosophy professor, Horacio Potel, for sharing a number of texts... more This paper examines the prosecution of an Argentine philosophy professor, Horacio Potel, for sharing a number of texts by Jacques Derrida online. By reading his own critique of copyright and the charges brought against him in conjunction with Derrida’s own work, I consider how Potel challenges understandings of authorship, law, and the ethics of copying, and how it has influenced popular discourse on copying. I also examine how his critique of the printed book as technology of transmission, in contrast to the liberatory potential of digital technologies, complicates our understanding of the materiality of cultural forms in resistances to neoliberalism in Argentina. Potel’s project can best be understood, I argue, as the construction of a reading subject whose orientation to the author and text is radically distinct from those seen either in other forms of “piracy” or liberal discourses of “open access” or “fair use.”

E-Archives: la numérisation des Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima (Portugal)

by Cristiana Freitas

FREITAS, Cristiana (2009) - E-Archives: la numérisation des Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima (Portugal). In Revista Arhivelor: Archival Review. [s.l.]: Arhievele Nationale Ale Romaniei. ISSN 1453-1755. Vol. 82, Nº 2 (2009), p. 71-78.

Installées dans un immeuble spécialement conçu pour cet effet, les Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima sont chargées... more Installées dans un immeuble spécialement conçu pour cet effet, les Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima sont chargées de préserver la mémoire archivistique et historique du Département Régional et, entre autres, de la gestion intégrée de l’information de nature «archivistique » des différents organes et services de la municipalité. Conscients de cette mission, ont été réalisées trois propositions de projets à différents programmes de numérisation, prévus dans les Programmes Opérationnels Européens du cadre financier de l’Union Européenne : 1 - La numérisation d’une grande partie des Archives Historiques et la diffusion en ligne ont pour but essentiellement de faire connaître à tous les habitants, en particulier aux jeunes, la richesse du patrimoine de Ponte de Lima en offrant à la population l’accès aux ressources archivistiques conservées par les Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima. 2 - Les dossiers de permis de construire constituent la documentation des Archives Municipales la plus consultée par les citoyens et par les services municipaux d’urbanisme. Elle est, par conséquent, plus sensible à la dégradation physique causée par la manipulation. Le projet de numérisation a été conçu comme une double réponse à ces problèmes : faciliter l’accès aux documents et préserver la documentation. Ce projet prévoit aussi d’adopter une Gestion Intégrée du Système d’Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima (dès la création du document et tout au long de son cycle de vie) et la création de web services afin d’intégrer ce système aux autres systèmes informatiques utilisés par la Mairie de Ponte de Lima, en particulier celui du Service d’Urbanisme, afin de éviter la perte de métadonnées et d’objets numériques au cours du temps. 3 - Afin de pouvoir conserver à long terme les documents numérisés, les Archives Municipales de Ponte de Lima veulent créer un dépôt institutionnel numérique qui permette le dépôt, la gestion et l’accès à l’information des documents numérisés, actuellement stockés sous forme de supports optiques fragiles (DVD), qui par leur vulnérabilité et obsolescence pourront provoquer la perte définitive de l’information indispensable à la constitution et consolidation de la mémoire collective de la région départementale de Ponte de Lima. Les principaux objectifs de ces projets de numérisation sont de conserver et diffuser le patrimoine archivistique, ainsi que de rationaliser le travail administratif d'une part, et d’améliorer le service rendu aux citoyens d'autre part, tout en protégeant les registres originaux des manipulations fréquentes risquant, à terme, de les endommager de forme irrémédiable.

Reliability Study of Methods for Scoring a Non-Metric Human Osteological Trait

by Shannon Freire

Second Author: Ashley Dunford (UW- Milwaukee)
Published in Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology, Volume 4, Issue 1: May 2012.

To gain meaningful insights from non-metric trait analysis in the field of human osteological study, issues of... more To gain meaningful insights from non-metric trait analysis in the field of human osteological study, issues of reliability and context need to be addressed, especially for the analysis of discrete cranial traits. A preliminary study tested the reliability of different methods of quantifying wormian bones, with the purpose of establishing a consistent method that would enable further applicability for this and other non-metric traits in mortuary analysis. The determination of reliability for both methods was made using Olsson and Janson’s (2001) iota statistic together with Pearson’s product-moment correlation. This study examines the reliability of scoring methods on an interobserver scale, an imperative step for the utility of these techniques for the wider archaeological community, as the majority of current data collection is a collaborative effort. The results of this study support the initial application in a case study involving a Bayesian probability analysis utilizing individuals from the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds collection.
Key words: wormian bones, reliability, non-metric traits, digitization, interobserver, intraobserver

Reliability Study of Methods for Scoring a Non-Metric Human Osteological Trait

by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

By Shannon Freire and Ashley Dunford

Published in Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 4(1): 173-191. (May 2012) Copyright ©2012 by Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology

To gain meaningful insights from non-metric trait analysis in the field of human osteological study, issues of... more To gain meaningful insights from non-metric trait analysis in the field of human osteological study, issues of reliability and context need to be addressed, especially for the analysis of discrete cranial traits. A preliminary study tested the reliability of different methods of quantifying wormian bones, with the purpose of establishing a consistent method that would enable further applicability for this and other non-metric traits in mortuary analysis. The determination of reliability for both methods was made using Olsson and Janson’s (2001) iota statistic together with Pearson’s product-moment correlation. This study examines the reliability of scoring methods on an interobserver scale, an imperative step for the utility of these techniques for the wider archaeological community, as the majority of current data collection is a collaborative effort. The results of this study support the initial application in a case study involving a Bayesian probability analysis utilizing individuals from the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds collection.

Towards a New Digital Historicism? Doing History in the Age of Abundance

by Andreas Fickers

This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially... more This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially of audiovisual sources – is comparable to the boom of critical source editions in the late 19th century. But while the dramatic rise of accessibility to and availability of sources in the 19th century went hand in hand with the development of new scholarly skills of source interpretation and was paralleled by the institutionalization of history as an academic profession, a similar trend of an emerging digital historicism today seems absent. This essay aims at reflecting on the challenges and chances that the discipline of history – and the field of television history in particular – is actually facing. It offers some thoughts and ideas on how the digitization of sources and their online availability affects the established practices of source criticism.

Valorisation of the Design Process. Digitisation as a Means of Conservation and Knowledge

by Davide Spallazzo

Co-authored with M.Ceconello in Euromed 2010. Digital heritage

The paper describes the ongoing project of digitization of the archive of the famed Italian modeller Giovanni Sacchi.... more The paper describes the ongoing project of digitization of the archive of the famed Italian modeller Giovanni Sacchi. The main idea that drives the project is to create a digital archive that links heterogeneous data – sketches, technical drawings, images, physical models – referring to a single product in order to create an overall view of the design process and creative thought performed by various designers. Six renowned industrial products, of which Triennale di Milano conserves a wooden model of Giovanni Sacchi, have been chosen as case studies and all the related material has been retrieved, digitized and catalogued following the current Italian standards. The project of digitisation and the first results of the testing procedures are encouraging: the methodology has allowed to obtain high quality digital outputs and the Regional archiving system (SIRBeC) offers a great basis to build scenarios of access for the exploitation of data. The objective is to make the complete archive available at Triennale di Milano and in selected reference points for the off-line consultation, allowing to browse through the archive with technological and innovative devices: a pioneering system of consultation through the use of handhelds, table pc and the exploitation of augmented reality as a tool to enhance the comprehension of the digital data and to involve the visitors into an immersive experience.

Digital Fragments: Re-Constructing Fragmentary Manuscript Collections Through Digital Technologies, a Case Study.

by Mark Geldof

Unpublished MSc dissertation in Information and Library Management, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, 2008.

In the middle of the twentieth century American book collector and educator Otto F. Ege produced and sold a series of... more In the middle of the twentieth century American book collector and educator Otto F. Ege produced and sold a series of portfolios containing individual manuscript leaves he had removed from his own collection of medieval books. These sets were sold and scattered across dozens of institutions and collections in North America and Europe. Recently, digital technologies have presented scholars, information professionals and curators with the opportunity to digitally re-assemble these scattered fragments. This paper is a descriptive case study of these efforts and an exploration of the potential present in digital technologies for the management and reconstruction of fragmentary collections. Material relating to the case study was collected through interviews with participants and analysis of materials produced by the projects. An extensive review of existing literature relating to digitization in special collections was conducted to place the project in the context of the information management profession. Research was also conducted into the historical background of the Otto F. Ege portfolios and the collection of manuscript fragments in general.

Worth More Dead than Live: US Corporate Radio and the Political Economy of Cyber-Jocking

by Marko Ala-Fossi

(2004)  Published in a special Issue of  Nordicom Review : 16th Conference on Media and Communication Research. Vol. 25, Number 1-2 . pp. 316–332. Nordicom, Göteborg University, Sweden.

Current public and academic discussion in the US tends to support the view that American commercial radio has taken a... more Current public and academic discussion in the US tends to support the view that American commercial radio has taken a totally new direction for two reasons: the massive station
ownership concentration after the Telecom Act of 1996 and the new digital technology. This view is very common among radio scholars and industry professionals – as well as journalists who write about radio media in the US. Some critics argue that this new form of corporate radio, owned by enormous, publicly traded companies, has changed radio’s economic power structure so that these giants may now – using the latest in digital technology – transform what had been lively and local commercial radio into a sheer generic commodity. Local productions have been replaced with syndicated content and in the smaller markets many stations are programmed
with pseudo-local and pseudo-live pre-recorded content, using the method of computerized, remote voice tracking also known as “cyber-jocking”.

Under Utgivning

by Mats Dahlstrom

The thesis investigates in what way the scholarly edition performs bibliographic functions as it manages and positions... more The thesis investigates in what way the scholarly edition performs bibliographic functions as it manages and positions other documents. This is where the study differs from previous research on scholarly editing and bibliography. It aims to trace the boundary between scholarly editing and bibliography by comparing crucial objectives, problems and conflicts in each field. This is accomplished by identifying the argumentation, assumptions and conceptual frameworks that form the rationale for the fields, and subjecting them to qualitative critical and historical analysis. The main empirical material is editorial theory literature, with scholarly editions serving as illustrating examples. Key questions concern the way scholarly editors and bibliographers identify, define and reproduce their respective source material; the reasons for conflicts between editors’ varying expectations of the reproductive force in printed and digital editions; and the connections and demarcations between scholarly editing and bibliography and between scholarly editions and reference works such as bibliographies. Bibliographic and media theory form the basis for the theoretical framework, with additional input from book history, literary theory, genre studies and scholarly communication studies. The thesis suggests a distinction between the two activities of clustering and transposition, and the distortion the latter brings about. These concepts are employed to detect, group and explain activities and problems in scholarly editing and bibliography, who both manage sets of documents by clustering them to one another and transposing their contents by producing new documents. There is a noticeable division of labour between the two tasks, and they also correspond to different types of editions. The study also ties the dominant editorial strategies and edition types to respective bibliographic foci, and argues that central conflict areas are primarily accentuated and only secondarily introduced with digital editing. An idealistic strand treats editing as unbiased delivery of disambiguable and reproducible content, while to a hermeneutical strand the edition is an argumentative and content constraining filter, its editor being a kind of biased author. In a third strand, editions are content circulating ecosystems with a division of labour between collaborating media types. In particular the view of editions as constitutive arguments is related to analogue observations in LIS and genre and scholarly communication studies. On the one hand, editing is supposed to be a dynamic research area, ready to respond to new findings and scholarly ideals. On the other, several arenas demand the edition to serve as a conservative force, static and confirmatory. The potential of digital media points to a distinction between edition and archive, where the former but not the latter explicitly takes an interpretative stand. Digital editing also boosts the idealistic strand by the seeming promise to separate facts from interpretation and to enhance maximum exhaustiveness and reproductivity. Although the thesis identifies many commonalities between editions and reference works and the way these are structured, there is a crucial difference. The edition is simultaneously a work’s reference and referent. Bibliographies and reference works cannot make that claim.

Information Technology for Historical Document Analysis

by Shih-Pei Chen

"Dissertation for her Ph.D. in Computer Science, National Taiwan University", "in Chinese", "regarding digital humanities and digital archives"

This thesis proposes two IT methods to help historians utilize digitized historical documents. The availability of... more This thesis proposes two IT methods to help historians utilize digitized historical documents. The availability of large quantity of historical documents that can be searched and retrieved has become a challenge for historians since the traditional way of carefully going through a small number of documents is no longer sufficient.
In this thesis we first give an overview of THDL, the Taiwan History Digital Library, a full-text digital library of primary historical documents about Taiwan. The documents in THDL, currently numbered 73,287 documents and over 54,000,000 words, are the major experiment materials in this thesis. We then introduce the feature analysis method, which puts a collection of historical documents in an observation environment to be studied collectively as opposed to treating them as individual documents. Feature analysis takes a sub-collection, meaning a set of documents related to a research topic that the user is currently interested in, as its input and analyzes the features shared by these documents. By calculating the amount of support for each feature (the amount of documents which are evidences of the occurrence of a feature), this method discovers features that are highly related to a sub-collection. We have developed a mathematical model for this method. We have also applied it to two of the corpuses in THDL and found unexpected and interesting observations.
We then present several relation discovery methods that try to find relationships among historical documents in a large collection of documents. We gave three examples of relation discovery carried out on the Imperial Court documents and Taiwanese land deeds. They are citation relations, land transaction relations, and the template relation. Through our methods, we have discovered 6,802 citation relations among the 37,836 Imperial Court documents selected from 280 sources, 3,910
transaction relations among the 35,451 land deeds from 117 sources, and 105 templates that were created following a specific format. We argued that the relationship discovery not only can help historians to consider more angles while reading the documents, but also can lead to new findings. The citation relations found have been transformed into 1,101 successive citation graphs, each of which reveals how a historical event evolved through the correspondence between a Qing emperor and his officials. The transaction relations are also transformed into 2,219 land transitivity graphs, some of which indicates land development activities that have never been studied before.

From Cabinet of Curiosoties to Digital Knowledge Environments

by Trilce Navarrete Hernandez

Does digitization bring a productivity lag in museum work?

by Trilce Navarrete Hernandez

Presented at ACEI 2010 conference

There is an apparent productivity lag in museums compared to other institutions in the heritagesector (e.g.... more There is an apparent productivity lag in museums compared to other institutions in the heritagesector (e.g. libraries). While libraries are receiving collections’ information already in digital form (catalogue information), museums remain dependent on manual registration of individual objects.
Museums in the Netherlands have reported an average digital activities expenditure of 10% of their total budget, labor representing the largest cost. Digital activities have become an important part of museum core business yet there is no clarity in the extent to which investment translate to access.
This paper will discuss current digital activities in the Dutch museums. We begin by identifying object valuation methods for the allocation of resources, we continue to discuss observed incurred costs, and we finalize by proposing a relationship to measure costs of and access to digital heritage materials.
Key words: museums, digital cultural heritage, Netherlands, production, costs

Museum libraries: how digitization can enhance the value of the museum

by Trilce Navarrete Hernandez

Co-authored with John Mackenzie Owen.
Cita recomendada:
Navarrete, Trilce & Mackenzie Owen, John. 2011. Museum libraries: how digitization can enhance the value of the museum. Palabra Clave (La Plata), vol. 1, nº 1, p. 12-20.

It is the responsibility of the museum library to enhance the understanding of the museum collection and the role of... more It is the responsibility of the museum library to enhance the understanding of the museum collection and the role of museum objects as cultural documents. For many reasons, this role is only partially fulfilled, if at all. This is because in practice the library and its museum are insufficiently integrated to perform effectively together. We argue that in a digital world, the library and the museum can and should be re-integrated into a single cultural information system. However, since in practice digitization of the library and the museum follow different paths, museums and their libraries will have to change their thinking about how to proceed.

Keywords: museum libraries, museums, digitization.

Dalla descrizione archivistica al documento digitale: l'adozione del profilo MAG per la gestione della digitalizzazione negli archivi storici

by Pierluigi Feliciati

published in "Digitalia", 1 (2007), ICU:Roma, p. 35-48

L’articolo parte da alcune considerazioni sul modello classico di accesso ai documenti archivistici storici, con l’uso... more L’articolo parte da alcune considerazioni sul modello classico di accesso ai documenti archivistici storici, con l’uso di un sistema di strumenti di mediazione utili a guidare l’utente nell’avvicinamento progressivo alle fonti di suo interesse, alla loro consultazione e alla loro eventuale riproduzione. Lungo questo percorso, la sapiente guida dell’archivista risulta essere un ausilio spesso indispensabile, vista la complessità in cui si è spesso costretti a orientarsi.
Nella costruzione di sistemi informativi archivistici, non potendo contare sulla mediazione diretta dell’archivista, è allora necessaria un’attenzione particolare alla contestualizzazione delle risorse descrittive, a maggior ragione se si intendono offrire anche documenti in versione digitale. Inoltre, risulta un punto critico la “tenuta strutturale” dei sistemi informativi, che non possono basarsi solo su connessioni semantiche basate sul contenuto delle descrizioni, ma devono appoggiarsi a un edificio identificativo coerente e stabile. Le attività di digitalizzazione devono essere inserite in tali architetture informative, pena la creazione di gallerie virtuali di documenti digitalizzati decontestualizzati, scarsamente utili. Nell’ambito del progetto SIAS e delle connesse digitalizzazioni presso alcuni Archivi di Stato, l’Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi ha scelto di adottare il profilo applicativo MAG per garantire la gestione e conservazione delle risorse digitali, mantenendo al tempo stesso i necessari collegamenti con il sistema di descrizione. L’articolo chiarisce le scelte tecniche e organizzative adottate per l’uso del MAG nei progetti di digitalizzazione archivistica, concludendosi con alcune prospettive per l’immediato futuro.
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The article opens with some considerations on the classical access model for historical archives records, a model which is based on a system of mediation tools that are intended to progressively lead the user to the resources of his/her interest, for them to be visioned and, when applicable, reproduced. This process can be highly complex, and the experienced guidance offered by the archivist can often prove to be essential. On the other hand, when it comes to archival information systems, one cannot rely on the direct mediation offered by the archivist; hence, when developing such systems the contextualisation of the descriptive resources needs to be carried out with particular care, especially in case digital access to the resources is to be provided. Moreover, the ‘structural solidity’ of the information systems appears to be another critical issue, as these systems cannot be exclusively based on semantic connections established on the basis of the content of the descriptions, but they need to be built upon a coherent and stable identification edifice. Digitisation activities should be carried out within the framework of information architectures of these kind, if one
is to avoid the creation of virtual galleries of decontextualised digitised records that would prove to be of scarce utility. Within the framework of the SIAS project and the related digitisation activities carried out in a number of State archives, the Istituto Centrale per gli Archivi has chosen to adopt the MAG stan-
dard for identification profiles, so as to ensure the correct management and preservation of digital resources while maintaining the required connections with the description system. The present article discusses technical and organi-
sational issues connected to the use of the MAG standard in archival digitisation initiatives, and concludes by exploring some of the possible perspectives for the immediate future.

Potenzialità economiche della cultura e v@lorizzazione negata in Sicilia

by Elisa Bonacini

paper presented at "Un'altra Siracusa - Primo Incontro: Il 'valore' della cultura per il turismo", Siracusa, Museo Archeologico Paolo Orsi, 21 ottobre 2011

Dopo un inquadramento generale sul potenziale economico inespresso del nostro patrimonio culturale, il contributo... more Dopo un inquadramento generale sul potenziale economico inespresso del nostro patrimonio culturale, il contributo approfondisce il ‘peso’ economico di Internet e l’arretratezza digitale dell’Italia, che corre il rischio di entrare a far parte di un Terzo Mondo Digitale anche a causa di una serie di impedimenti legislativi allo sviluppo. Infine, si anticipano alcuni risultati di una ricerca in c.d.s. (La visibilit@ sul web del patrimonio culturale siciliano: criticità e prospettive attraverso un survey on-line. Con Guida multimediale ai musei siciliani sul web) nella quale si evidenzia come, tranne alcune rare eccezioni, sia ancora scadente la qualità della comunicazione del patrimonio culturale siciliano.

2011 DAS Projekt Beitrag Archaeolet

by Guido Nockemann

Blog-Post @ www.Archaeolet.de about the DAS-project.

German Version

The aim of the DAS-project is the complete digitization of the archaeological collection of the Lippischen Landesmuseum Detmold/Germany to present all objekts/finds in the WWW via the objekt-portal 'museum-digital'.

Das digitale Museum-Das DAS-Projekt im Lippischen Landesmuseum Detmold

by Guido Nockemann

Magazine article (AFAKTOR 4/11, p.36-39) about the DAS-project (Digitization of the archaeological collection of the Lippischen Landesmuseum Detmold/Germany)

La digitalización de soportes de audio con fines docentes en un entorno virtualizado

by Mikel Díaz-Emparanza

Co-authored with Iglesias Iglesias, Iván. Published in 'I Congreso Internacional sobre aprendizaje, innovación y competitividad', CINAIC 2011. Madrid:2011

Dentro de las actividades propias del Espacio Europeo de
Educación Superior, y en el caso concreto de los nuevos... more Dentro de las actividades propias del Espacio Europeo de
Educación Superior, y en el caso concreto de los nuevos Grados
Universitarios cuya dimensión estructural se basa en la casi
“construcción diaria” y comprobación de metodologías innovadoras
de aprendizaje, la oportunidad de desarrollar nuevos métodos
docentes supone un gran aliciente en el camino hacia la excelencia, y
permite dotar al alumno de múltiples herramientas alternativas de
aprendizaje.
Hoy en día, cualquier metodología pasa por la aceptación del mundo
tecnológico que nos toca vivir y, en la mayoría de los casos, su
aprovechamiento para la práctica diaria.
A través de este trabajo se pretende implementar una sencilla
herramienta metodológica, basada en la virtualización de contenidos
y el desarrollo profesional docente y su posible interdisciplinariedad
en función de los resultados. Todas estas actuaciones redundarán en
una mejora de la calidad de la docencia en las titulaciones adaptadas
al E.E.E.S.

Inspiring Research, Inspiring Scholarship: The value and benefits of digitised resources for learning, teaching, research and enjoyment

by Simon Tanner

This document draws evidence from a wide number of sources and seeks to provide a compelling account of the advantages... more This document draws evidence from a wide number of sources and seeks to provide a compelling account of the advantages of digitised content. The aim is to provide key information and strong exemplars for the following primary stakeholders:

- Memory institutions and cultural heritage organisations such as libraries, museums and archives.
- Holders and custodians of special collections.
- Managers, project managers and fundraisers who are seeking to justify further investment in digitised resources.
- Academics looking to establish digital projects and digital scholarship collaborations with collection owners.
- Publishing, media and business sectors which may be considering the best means to collaborate and align with collection owners, with academia or memory institutions.


This report performs the task of synthesising information relating to the benefits of digitisation and helps to provide a compelling argument for future digitisation work. Thus, you will find in this document information on:

Where the value and impact can be found in digitised resources,
What modes of value and impact are achievable, and
Who are the beneficiaries gaining from the impact and value?
Special attention is worth paying to the section upon 5 modes of value for digitised resources in Creating Digital Britain. The basic value modes suggested here may act as a guide for future digitisation impact assessment. If these value models to society as a whole are satisfied then many other benefits identified in this report will also accrue.

This document therefore provides strong information to support:

Fundraising and revenue development plans,
Audience development,
Designing evaluation and impact assessment,
Project planning, and
Planning educational activities to augment digitised resources.
Re-use, divide and repackage this document for your benefit. Please attribute the source/authorship according to the licence, but feel free to re-use.

Dificultăți în păstrarea materialului digital pe termen lung

by Liviu Pop