http://dh2013.unl.edu/abstracts/ab-422.html

1. A Comparative Kalendar:
Building a Research Tool for Medieval Books of
Hours from Distributed Resources
Benjamin Albritton
Stanford University
blalbrit@stanford.edu
@bla222
Robert Sanderson
Los Alamos National Laboratory
rsanderson@lanl.gov
@azaroth42
James Ginther, Saint Louis University
Martin Foys, Drew University
Shannon Bradshaw, Drew University

2. Distributed Resources
• Digital Manuscript Interoperability
– SharedCanvas
– International Image Interoperability Framework
– Open Annotation (separate project, but we use it)
• Multiple Repositories
• Multiple cataloging and discovery approaches
• Goal: Exercise the promise of interoperability
for specialist analytic tools

3. A Sea of Manuscript Data
• Interoperability – at lowest level, ability for
third-party tools to consume content from
multiple sources in an identical way
http://sul-reader-test.stanford.edu/el-camino

4. A Sea of Manuscript Data
• Interoperability – at next level, tools provide
data back into the system that can be re-used
T-PEN (http://t-pen.org): transcription, line-parsing, RDF export

5. A Sea of Manuscript Data
• Interoperability – at next level, tools provide
data back into the system that can be re-used
DM (http://dm.drew.edu/dmproject/): general annotation

6. A Sea of Manuscript Data
• Currently ca. 2500 manuscripts available via
SharedCanvas / IIIF
• At current pace, many thousands more by late
2014
• Mixed bag of metadata, quality, content, etc.
• A challenge to the traditional “index”
• Few are interested in “all” – many are
interested in specific subsets

7. Liturgical Books and Structured Data
Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r
Kalendars
• Ubiquitous
• Structure
• Daily list of liturgical events
• Arranged in a perpetual
calendar
• Often tabular
• Content varies according to
• Date
• Region of use or production
• Etc
• Minor variations transmit a great
deal of information

8. Liturgical Books and Structured Data
Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r
Pilot Goals
• Build an extensible navigation
and discovery tool for books
containing kalendars
• Using existing image data from
interoperable repositories and
user-generated data from
interoperable tools
• Focusing on the key elements
provided in the kalendar: dates
and liturgical events

9. Rethinking Digital Facsimiles
Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r
• Distributed
• Linked Data and Resources
• Single Global Space
• Interactive
• Consumer as Producer
• Interoperable
• Seamlessly Interconnected
• Open Source, Open Content

10. Rethinking Digital Facsimiles
Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r
• Distributed
• Linked Data and Resources
• Single Global Space
• Interactive
• Consumer as Producer
• Interoperable
• Seamlessly Interconnected
• Open Source, Open Content
• … 100% Buzzword Compliant

11. Model: Canvas Paradigm
• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display

12. Model: Canvas Paradigm
• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display
• A SharedCanvas's top left and bottom right corners correspond to the
equivalent corners of a [rectangular bounding box around a] page

13. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas
• The Canvas represents the empty page
• Annotation links Image with Canvas

14. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas
• Annotation links Text with Canvas

15. Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas

16. Model: Missing Pages

17. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

18. Kalendar Data for Extraction
Beinecke MS 310, f. 1r
• Each row = 1 day (January 1, here)
• Lists the feast of the Circumcision
• Optionally provides additional information

19. Data capture in T-PEN

20. SharedKalendar?
• Annotations as re-useable data
• Every record for the transcribed Kalendars
becomes a means for organization and
discovery within the available manuscripts
• Offers:
– Quick comparison of known content
– Ability to present line-level context
• Across multiple objects
– Across multiple repositories and projects

21. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

22. Front-end: Exhibit
http://guillaumedemachaut.com/kalendar/sharedkalendar.html
Simple (really simple) Exhibit based on kalendar transcriptions
(Exhibit: http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit/)

23. For each record:
Basic information
PLUS:
• Link out to a canvas
viewer implementation
showing:
• Transcription in
context
• Full page of kalendar
• Ability to move
around w/in the
manuscript

24. For each record:

25. Enabling rapid comparison
Two mss. include the entry “Thimotheus apostel”

26. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

27. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

28. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

29. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

30. SharedCanvas Demo Implementation
http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demodh

31. Distributed Resources /
Distributed Environments

32. Pitfalls
• Data creation (Annotations)
– Interfaces
– Reliability
• Somewhat ameliorated by being exposed easily
– Willingness (or lack thereof)
• Data availability
– Lack of interoperability (improving rapidly)
– Paywalls

33. Additional Next Steps
• More manuscripts
• More transcriptions
• Authority lists
• User feedback from Books of Hours scholars
• Collaboration

34. Thank you
• Benjamin Albritton
– blalbrit@stanford.edu
– @bla222
• Robert Sanderson
– rsanderson@lanl.gov
– @azaroth42
• DMS Interoperability
– dms-public@lists.stanford.edu
• SharedCanvas
– http://www.shared-canvas.org
• OpenAnnotation
– http://www.w3.org/community/op
enannotation/
• IIIF
– http://lib.stanford.edu/iiif
• SharedKalendar (temporary)
– http://guillaumedemachaut.com/k
alendar/sharedkalendar.html
Questions?