David Michelson will present a workshop for students at Gordon College on 3/18/2014:
“Introduction to Digital Humanities and Syriaca.org”
Below are some notes for the presentation which will introduce Syriaca.org, the broader field of digital humanities, and discuss the Text Encoding Initiative’s guidelines for cataloging manuscripts.
Outline
Alphabet Soup:
- Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal
- Linked Open Data
- RDF (Resource Description Framework)
- URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
- Cyberinfrastructure
- Authority Control
- Virtual International Authority File
- XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
- TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)
Links:
“Report on the Destruction of Syriac Cultural Heritage in the Contemporary Middle East”
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nHhX1AqjJE511KeLoqKS_FPcVK_ZBss6n5F62lJX-Q8
What are the digital humanities?
If you want a bibliography here is a course I am teaching: http://paralipomena.com/schedule/
If you want a quick overview showing how one part of the digital humanities can be useful, I would watch this: http://vimeo.com/36752317
If you want some specific reflection on questions, you could read:
- Electronic Textual Editing. The section “Sources and Orientations” has several essays about using TEI with different genres and types of sources.
- Cayless, Hugh, Charlotte Roueché, Tom Elliott, and Gabriel Bodard. “Epigraphy in 2017.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 003, no. 1 (February 26, 2009). (See especially the section at the end of the article:”4. The Scholar and Digital Texts”)
- Blackwell, Christopher, and Gregory Crane. “Conclusion: Cyberinfrastructure, the Scaife Digital Library and Classics in a Digital Age.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 003, no. 1 (February 26, 2009).
Data from Syriaca.org:
A general overview of the entire Syriaca.org project is here.
The Syriac Gazetteer:
- Sample Entry for Edessa: http://lib7.library.vanderbilt.edu:8080/exist/apps/srophe/geo/place.html?id=78
- Homepage: http://lib7.library.vanderbilt.edu:8080/exist/apps/srophe/geo/index.html
- Index of Entries: http://lib7.library.vanderbilt.edu:8080/exist/apps/srophe/geo/browse.html
- Documentation: http://lib7.library.vanderbilt.edu:8080/exist/apps/srophe/geo/help/index.html
Since this is a pre-publication draft, please note that these links are for demonstration and testing purposes only and should not be cited. This is especially important since these URLS and content will change before publication.
The Syriac Author Database:
Manuscripts:
- http://www.fihrist.org.uk/
- http://thedigitalwalters.org/Supplemental/ManuscriptDescription.html
- The current Syriaca.org Manuscript Repository: https://github.com/srophe/manuscripts
- Our manual for cataloging (warning it is very technical, more than you will need to do one MS): https://docs.google.com/document/d/175Yx1uf_HaXRA6O36p83vf-ECFWLGFNbUXoDF7ffVDs
About XML:
http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/humcomp/what-is-xml.php
Overview of TEI:
http://www.wwp.brown.edu/outreach/seminars/tei.htm
Simple and sample exercise for using TEI for manuscripts:
http://tei.oucs.ox.ac.uk/Talks/2009-04-galway/exercise-D2_describing-a-manuscript.xml