Syriaca.org editors David A. Michelson (Vanderbilt University) and Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent (Marquette University), in collaboration with Dawn Childress (UCLA Libraries, Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library), organized the first online meeting of a new Working Group for Linked Manuscript Descriptions as part of the Linked Pasts VII Symposium. The first session (12/15) gathered interested scholars to plan future collaboration. The second session (12/16) was more practical and aimed to align existing data from Syriac manuscripts as a test case.
Working Group for Linked Manuscript Descriptions
The call for participants and schedule was as follows:
December 15-16, 2021
Sessions will meet on Zoom for 2 hours from 17:00-19:00 UTC (GMT)
9-11 AM PST / 11 AM-1 PM CST / 12-2 PM EST / 6-8 PM CET
Organizers:
Dawn Childress, University of California, Los Angeles
Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Marquette University
David A. Michelson, Vanderbilt University
The organizers are working to create a common Linked Open Data vocabulary for the description of medieval manuscripts from the Middle East. We are gathering an online community of scholars to begin work on this shared vocabulary. We invite historians, librarians, and anyone interested in linking data about medieval manuscripts to join us in formulating this common data standard. The working group will meet for its first sessions online on December 15-16, 2021 as part of the Linked Pasts VII Symposium (hosted by Ghent University, https://www.ghentcdh.ugent.be/linked-pasts-vii-symposium).
Two sessions are planned for the working group (a detailed schedule is below).
First, we hope to gather a wide group of practitioners interested in linked data from medieval Middle Eastern manuscripts broadly defined. A general session on December 15th will gather these scholars to gauge interest and plan future work. Confirmed participants include representatives of the Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library, Syriaca.org, MAJLIS, e-Sketikon, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, Beth Mardutho, Pinakes/e-Ktobe, and the Historical Middle East Data Alliance.
Second, we plan to use Syriac manuscript descriptions as an initial test case for linking data. A second session on December 16th will gather participants working on Syriac manuscript data as well as anyone interested in supporting the collaborative process to join us for a practical working session to investigate aligning linked data.
Session 1 (18:00 CET Wednesday, Dec. 15)
Goal: Gauge Interest and Plan Future Work
18:00 CET Part 1: Overview
- Introductions of Participants
- Goals of Working Group
- Discussion of Use Cases
- Survey of Existing Practices
18:40 CET Break
19:00 CET Part 2: Forming Collaboration Teams
- Possible Domains for Shared Vocabularies
- Authorities (e.g. people, places, works, esp. composite texts)
- Object/Relationship Models (e.g. palimpsests, disjecta membra, manuscript structures; networks between people, places, objects, etc.)
- Codicological Description (e.g. condition, language, script, provenance)
- Technical Standards (e.g. images, metadata, preservation; use of IIIF, CIDOC, etc.)
- Brainstorming and Surveying State of the Field
- Determining Next steps
- Continuation of the Working Group
- Invitation of Additional Collaborators
20:00 CET Finis
Session 2 (18:00 CET Thursday, Dec. 16)
Goal: Create a working alignment of Syriac Manuscript data between two or more collections as a proof of concept.
18:00 CET Part 1: Presenting Syriac Data Models
- Reviewing Data Models and Sample Records for Syriac Manuscripts
- Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library
- Syriaca.org (British Library Collection)
- Hill Museum and Manuscript Library
- e-Sketikon
- Pinakes/e-Ktobe
18:30 CET Part 2: Collaborative Work in Breakout Groups
- Collaborative work aligning fields from the Syriac manuscript data models.
18:50 Break
19:00 CET Part 3: Collaborative Work in Breakout Groups
- Collaborative work aligning fields from the Syriac manuscript data models.
19:30 CET Part 4: Concluding Discussion
- Concluding Discussion
- What are shared authorities?
- What is a work?
- How are palimpsests, fragments, and manuscript parts represented?
- What are future use cases for linked data from manuscripts?