Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

114
names <strong>in</strong> texts dated to with<strong>in</strong> some small number of years of one another, for example” (Jackson et al.
2009). Historical named-entity disambiguation thus presented both a major opportunity and a
challenge to data <strong>in</strong>tegration. Another significant barrier to query<strong>in</strong>g multiple databases was the
problem of semantic ambiguity:
To run queries across multiple databases, a researcher would already need a significant degree
of understand<strong>in</strong>g about what each database conta<strong>in</strong>ed and also which tables and columns
conta<strong>in</strong>ed data that was semantically equivalent and could therefore be compared or tested for
equality. Any such <strong>in</strong>frastructure would have to provide a far greater degree of support for
mak<strong>in</strong>g the databases seem as if they are <strong>in</strong>deed part of one virtual database, for example by
normaliz<strong>in</strong>g dates (Jackson et al. 2009).
In addition to semantic ambiguity <strong>in</strong> terms of how data were described or stored, Jackson et al. po<strong>in</strong>ted
out that once one starts try<strong>in</strong>g to automatically l<strong>in</strong>k humanities databases, the fuzzy and <strong>in</strong>terpretative
nature of much of these data become quite problematic. Other, more specific challenges <strong>in</strong>cluded
know<strong>in</strong>g when to jo<strong>in</strong> columns, variant names for historical entities, various ways of represent<strong>in</strong>g
dates, the precision and uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty of dates, and errors <strong>in</strong> databases that cannot easily be changed.
One major conclusion reached by the LaQuAT project was that more virtual data centers needed to be
created that could <strong>in</strong>tegrate several data sources. For this reason, they were actively participat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the
DARIAH project, hop<strong>in</strong>g that the solutions LaQuAT had developed would:
… have a lifespan beyond the <strong>in</strong>itial project and will provide a framework <strong>in</strong>to which other
researchers will be able to attach resources of <strong>in</strong>terest, thus build<strong>in</strong>g up a critical mass of
related material whose utility as a research tool will be significantly greater than that of the sum
of its parts. We see this project as provid<strong>in</strong>g an opportunity to start build<strong>in</strong>g a more extensive e-
<strong>in</strong>frastructure for advanced research <strong>in</strong> the (digital) humanities (Bodard et al. 2009).
As part of this work, they hoped to conv<strong>in</strong>ce scholars <strong>in</strong> different countries to abandon a silo mentality
and help build a large mass of open material. In terms of future research, they argued that far more
research was needed <strong>in</strong>to the issue of cross-database l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the humanities, especially <strong>in</strong> the l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g
of relational and XML databases, which their project was unable to <strong>in</strong>vestigate further. Nonetheless,
the recently announced SPQR (Support<strong>in</strong>g Productive Queries for Research) 374 project plans to carry
on the work of LaQuAT, particularly the “<strong>in</strong>tegration of heterogeneous datasets <strong>in</strong> the humanities,”
particularly <strong>in</strong> the area of classical antiquity, and will explore the use of l<strong>in</strong>ked data and will be based
on the Europeana Data Model (EDM). 375 Further details on this project can be found later <strong>in</strong> this
paper.
The scholarly importance of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g the study of <strong>in</strong>scriptions to other sources of archaeological or
other material, particularly to help provide a greater context for <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>scriptions, has also been
emphasized by Charlotte Tupman (Tupman 2010). In her discussion of funerary <strong>in</strong>scriptions found on
monuments, Tupman noted that different categories of funerary evidence (e.g., pottery, bone
fragments) typically need to be assembled for fuller understand<strong>in</strong>g of an <strong>in</strong>scription 376 and that there is
no easy way to present the varied archaeological evidence, the funerary text, and images of the
monument it was found on <strong>in</strong> a way that is easily comprehensible to scholars. As funerary texts were
rarely published with other related material evidence, Tupman observed that typically these
374 http://spqr.cerch.kcl.ac.uk/m=201008
375 http://www.europeanaconnect.eu/news.phparea=News&pag=48
376 Kris Lockyear has also made similar arguments about the importance of <strong>in</strong>tegrat<strong>in</strong>g numismatic evidence with other archaeological evidence.