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

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129 As part of this phase, the VMR at the University of Birm<strong>in</strong>gham 410 also plans to jo<strong>in</strong> with a parallel VMR be<strong>in</strong>g built at the University of Münster <strong>in</strong> Germany and provide seamless access to both collections. Four features dist<strong>in</strong>guish Interedition from previous manuscript digitization projects: (1) it is designed around granular metadata, so <strong>in</strong>stead of simply present<strong>in</strong>g metadata records for whole manuscripts, records are provided for each page image, for the transcription of the text on that page, and for specify<strong>in</strong>g what text is on that page; (2) “the metadata states the exact resource type associated with the URL specified <strong>in</strong> each record” (e.g., if a text file is <strong>in</strong> XML and what schema has been used); (3) all VMR materials will be stored <strong>in</strong> Birm<strong>in</strong>gham’s <strong>in</strong>stitutional repository and be accessible through the library onl<strong>in</strong>e public access catalog (OPAC), and (4) the VMR will support full reuse of its materials not just access to them. This fourth feature is perhaps most unique, for as seen by the survey of projects <strong>in</strong> this section, the focus of much manuscript-digitization work has often been on support<strong>in</strong>g the discovery of digital manuscripts for use onl<strong>in</strong>e rather than on the ability for scholars to get access to the raw digital materials and use them <strong>in</strong> their own projects. The VMR plans to provide access to all the metadata they create through a syndicated RSS feed so that users can create their own <strong>in</strong>terfaces to VMR data. In addition, they plan to allow other users to add material to the VMR by creat<strong>in</strong>g a “metadata record for the resource follow<strong>in</strong>g VMR protocols” and then add it to the RSS feed of any VMR project. The importance of support<strong>in</strong>g new collaboration models that allow many <strong>in</strong>dividuals to contribute related digital manuscript resources has also been discussed <strong>in</strong> Rob<strong>in</strong>son (2009, 2010). While the amount of metadata about manuscripts, as well as digital images and transcriptions of manuscripts, that have become available onl<strong>in</strong>e has <strong>in</strong>creased, there are still few easy ways to l<strong>in</strong>k between them if they exist <strong>in</strong> different collections. A related problem is the limited ability to at least partially automate the l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g of manuscript images with their transcriptions, even if both are known to exist. Arianna Ciula has argued that the work of palaeographers would greatly benefit from descriptive encod<strong>in</strong>g or technology that supported more sophisticated l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g between images and texts, particularly “the possibility to export the association between descriptions of specific palaeographical properties and the coord<strong>in</strong>ates with<strong>in</strong> a manuscript image <strong>in</strong> a standard format such as the encod<strong>in</strong>g proposed by the TEI facsimile module or SVG” (Ciula 2009). Recently Hugh Cayless has developed a series of tools and techniques to assist <strong>in</strong> this process that have been grouped under the name img2XML 411 and have been described <strong>in</strong> detail <strong>in</strong> Cayless (2008, 2009). As has been previously discussed by Monella (2008) and Boschetti (2009), Cayless noted that manuscript transcriptions are typically published <strong>in</strong> one of two formats, either as a critical edition where the editors’ comments are <strong>in</strong>cluded as an <strong>in</strong>tegral part of the text or as a diplomatic transcription that tries to “faithfully reproduce the text” (Cayless 2009). While TEI allows the production of both types of transcriptions from the same marked-up text, Cayless argued that the next important step is to automatically l<strong>in</strong>k such transcriptions to their page images. While many systems l<strong>in</strong>k manuscript images and transcriptions on the page level, 412 the work of Cayless sought to support more granular l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g, such as at the level of <strong>in</strong>dividual l<strong>in</strong>es or even words. 410 The VMR at Birm<strong>in</strong>gham has been funded by JISC and is be<strong>in</strong>g created by the Institute of Textual Scholarship and Electronic Edit<strong>in</strong>g (ITSEE), http://www.itsee.bham.ac.uk/ 411 http://github.com/hcayless/img2xml 412 One such system is EPPT (discussed earlier <strong>in</strong> this paper), and another tool listed by Cayless is the Image Markup Tool (IMT), http://www.tapor.uvic.ca/%7Emholmes/image_markup/<strong>in</strong>dex.php, which allows a user to annotate “rectangular sections of an image” by us<strong>in</strong>g a draw<strong>in</strong>g tool with which they can first “draw shape overlays on an image” and then these overlays can then be l<strong>in</strong>ked to “text annotations entered by the user.” (Cayless 2009).
130 Cayless thus developed a method for generat<strong>in</strong>g a “Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 413 representation of the text <strong>in</strong> an image of a manuscript” (Cayless 2009). This work was <strong>in</strong>spired by experiments conducted us<strong>in</strong>g the OpenLayers 414 Javascript library by Tom Elliott and Sean Gillies to trace the text on a sample <strong>in</strong>scription 415 and Cayless sought to create a “toolcha<strong>in</strong>” that used only open-source software. To beg<strong>in</strong>, Cayless converted JPEG images of manuscripts <strong>in</strong>to a bitmap format us<strong>in</strong>g ImageMagick; 416 he then used an open-source tool called Potrace 417 to convert the bitmap to SVG. The SVG conversion process required some manual <strong>in</strong>tervention, and an SVG editor called Inscape was used to clean up the result<strong>in</strong>g SVG files. The result<strong>in</strong>g SVG documents were analyzed us<strong>in</strong>g a Python script that attempted to “detect l<strong>in</strong>es <strong>in</strong> the image and organize paths with<strong>in</strong> those l<strong>in</strong>es <strong>in</strong>to groups with<strong>in</strong> the document” (Cayless 2008). After the text image with<strong>in</strong> a larger manuscript page image had been converted <strong>in</strong>to SVG paths, these paths could be grouped with<strong>in</strong> the document to mark the words there<strong>in</strong> and these groups could then be l<strong>in</strong>ked us<strong>in</strong>g various methods to tokenized versions of the transcriptions (Cayless 2009). Cayless then used the OpenLayers library to simultaneously display the l<strong>in</strong>ked manuscript image and TEI transcription, for importantly, OpenLayers “allows the <strong>in</strong>sertion of a s<strong>in</strong>gle image as a base layer (though it supports tiled images as well), so it is quite simple to <strong>in</strong>sert a page image <strong>in</strong>to it” (Cayless 2008). This <strong>in</strong>itial system also required the addition of several functions to the OpenLayers library, particularly the ability to support “paths and groups of paths.” Ultimately, Cayless reported that: The experiments outl<strong>in</strong>ed above prove that it is feasible to go from a page image with a TEIbased transcription to an onl<strong>in</strong>e display <strong>in</strong> which the image can be panned and zoomed, and the text on the page can be l<strong>in</strong>ked to the transcription (and vice-versa). The steps <strong>in</strong> the process that have not yet been fully automated are the selection of a black/white cutoff for the page image, the decision of what percentage of vertical overlap to use <strong>in</strong> recogniz<strong>in</strong>g that two paths are members of the same l<strong>in</strong>e, and the need for l<strong>in</strong>e beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g () tags to be <strong>in</strong>serted <strong>in</strong>to the TEI transcription (Cayless 2008). While automatic analysis of the SVG output has supported the detection of l<strong>in</strong>es of text <strong>in</strong> page images, work cont<strong>in</strong>ues to allow the automatic detection of words or other features <strong>in</strong> the image. Cayless concluded that this research raised two issues. To beg<strong>in</strong> with, further research would need to consider what structures (beyond l<strong>in</strong>es) could be detected <strong>in</strong> a SVG document and how they could be l<strong>in</strong>ked to transcriptions. Second, TEI transcriptions often def<strong>in</strong>e document structure <strong>in</strong> a “semantic” rather than physical way, and even though l<strong>in</strong>e, word, and letter segments can be marked <strong>in</strong> TEI they often are not. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to automate the l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g process. Cayless proposed that a standard would need to be developed for this type of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g. Other experiments <strong>in</strong> automatic l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g of images and transcriptions have been conducted by the TILE project. 418 This project seeks to build a “web-based image markup tool” 419 and is based on the exist<strong>in</strong>g code of the Ajax XML (AXE) image encoder. 420 It will be <strong>in</strong>teroperable with both the EPPT and the 413 SVG is “a language for describ<strong>in</strong>g two-dimensional graphics and graphical applications <strong>in</strong> XML.” http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ 414 http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Release/2.6/Notes 415 http://sgillies.net/blog/691/digitiz<strong>in</strong>g-ancient-<strong>in</strong>scriptions-with-openlayers 416 http://www.imagemagick.org/ 417 http://potrace.sourceforge.net/ 418 This project’s approach to digital editions was discussed earlier <strong>in</strong> this paper. 419 An <strong>in</strong>itial release of TILE 0.9 is now available for download at (http://mith.umd.edu/tile/) <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g extensive step-by-step documentation http://mith.<strong>in</strong>fo/tile/documentation/ and a forum for users. This <strong>in</strong>itial version <strong>in</strong>cludes an image markup tool, import<strong>in</strong>g and export<strong>in</strong>g tools, and a semiautomated l<strong>in</strong>e recognizer. There is also a TILE sandbox (http://mith.umd.edu/tile/sandbox/), a “MITH-hosted version of TILE allow<strong>in</strong>g users to try the tool before <strong>in</strong>stall<strong>in</strong>g their own copy.” 420 http://mith.<strong>in</strong>fo/AXE/
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"Rome Wasn
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ii ISBN 978-1-932326-38-3 CLIR Publ
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iv EpiDoc-Based Digital Epigraphy P
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vi ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alison Babeu ha
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viii PBW PCA PDB PDL PHI PLANETS PN
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x pursuit of knowledge about the an
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2 and intellectual
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4 associations to work together, an
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6 briefly explore issues that are n
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8 for English translations of Greek
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10 is created of the entire bibliog
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12 directory of more than 2,100 cat
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14 generated by the decision tree p
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16 The image-registration algorithm
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18 Schibel and Rydberg-Cox argued t
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20 information ret
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22 In ancient manuscripts, Sanskrit
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24 algorithms; ins
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26 Markov Models (MEMM) 82 and outp
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28 One major project to recently em
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30 developed a cuneiform sign reper
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32 and prayers), and edited texts a
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34 Digital critical editions, howev
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36 While these requirements may see
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38 many discrete texts, in<
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40 examine how l<s
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42 The second fact that Rob
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44 “multimedia scholarly editions
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46 different apparatuses. In Bosche
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48 individual text
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50 In these cases we must provide a
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52 First, it utilizes a nearest nei
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54 entirely pre-searched for each l
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56 As this research in</str
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58 the inscription
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60 Text Min<strong
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62 This manual analysis provided a
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64 As illustrated by this def<stron
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66 archaeology as a discipl
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68 funded with public money <strong
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70 for re-use is a simple slogan, b
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72 framework to in
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74 then mapped to the CRM-EH so tha
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76 tDAR also stores all resources <
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Page 117 and 118: 106 To begin this
Page 119 and 120: 108 better set the in</stro
Page 121 and 122: 110 Another related project that ha
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Page 127 and 128: 116 and Manuscripts (VRE-SDM) 378 s
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Page 135 and 136: 124 While the advanced document-rec
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Page 157 and 158: 146 The final majo
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Page 167 and 168: 156 The conclusion drawn from this
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180 or more documents (69 percent)
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182 This work tends to focus on des
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184 A related poin
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186 “infer user
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188 accessed; few providers, if any
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190 information so
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192 features. In addition, while pa
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194 postdoctoral students, who were
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196 computers by ancient historians
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198 Demos (a growin</strong
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200 database of this encyclopedia c
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202 academia.” At the same time,
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206 science and use ICT occasionall
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208 also declared that the m<strong
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214 tradition of European literatur
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216 the related MILARQ project, 649
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218 initial fund<s
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220 SPQR—Supportin</stron
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222 environments in</strong
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224 become less “localized” wit
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226 methods,” Cohen et al. expla<
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228 One might have presumed that ou
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230 This lack of deeper understand<
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232 expertise, tools, experience, a
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234 All link<stron
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236 of architecture, tools and serv
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238 reported that eSAD was develop<
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240 semantic tools that would make
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242 Sustainable Pr
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244 A recent ARL report that explor
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246 organizations and fundi
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248 throughout this review, i.e., o
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250 commercial providers. At the sa
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252 representations beyond the bord
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254 such as Vindol
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256 that the question of in
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260 resources and technology overvi
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264 support the main</stron
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266 Interoperability”). 763 The m
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270 This architecture makes it easy
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272 [Aschenbrenner et al. 2008]. As
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274 Editions.” Advances i
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276 [Bodard et al. 2009]. Bodard, G
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278 [Bulger et al. 2011]. Bulger, M
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280 [Choudhury and Stin</st
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282 [Crane et al. 2009a]. Crane, Gr
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284 [Dué and Ebbott 2009]. Dué, C
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286 [Flaten 2009]. Flaten, Arne R.
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288 [Hardwick 2000]. Hardwick, Lorn
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290 Conference on E-Science Worksho
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292 [Lockyear 2007]. Lockyear, Kris
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294 Cambridge, MA: Association for
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296 [Ntzios et al. 2007]. Ntzios, K
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298 [Reddy and Crane 2006]. Reddy,
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300 [Rydberg-Cox 2009]. Rydberg-Cox
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302 [Smith 2010]. Smith, D. Neel.
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304 and the Canadian Academic Commu
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306 [Wallom et al. 2009]. Wallom, D
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