[okfn-help] Tools for the digital humanities (was Re: Milton and Shakespeare)

[Jonathan Gray]

Rufus Pollock wrote:
>> Do we want to make the architecture of the project as generic as 
>> possible and then offer "packs" of the data files (with the texts and 
>> ancillary folders with the metadata file) for individual authors for 
>> users to download and install? I think this would allow for differing 
>> groups to use the project for their own purposes.
> 
> I think this is definitely the way to go :)

Absolutely! For me the dream is having a generic toolkit with an 
annotation tool, concordance tool, and other tools for representing, 
exploring and analysing texts.

I know this is something that was discussed a lot at the COST A32 
meeting, and which I discussed at length with people at the Internet 
Archive. There seems to be a lot of demand for an architecture for a 
'workspace' for working with scans, texts, etc. I remember that David 
Palfrey (Birkbeck) and Ioannis Doukis (KCL) have both been particularly 
interested in this in the past. (I've CC'ed them in this message!)

I've started a page for notes about these, in relation to 
Shakespeare/Milton:

   http://okfn.org/wiki/DigitalHumanitiesTools

I keep thinking of little things I'd really like to see when I'm doing 
my academic research. I'll try and put these in the wishlist, and 
encourage others to do the same!

I've had many conversations about having a workshop to gather ideas 
about the kinds of things that researchers would find most useful. 
Weren't we talking of doing this in Oxford Iain? Perhaps we could do 
this in the autumn?

Also, Ioannis has started to populate:

   http://okfn.org/wiki/DigitalHumanities

Of particular interest is the Chicago Homer Project, which I think is an 
outstanding example of a helpful and intuitive set of tools for 
humanities research:

   http://www.library.northwestern.edu/homer/

Its a great shame its not open, as it could be really useful if it were 
re-usable with other texts!

>> Firstly, should we also have an upload form where collaborative groups 
>> can link in their own essays and notes under the OKD?
> 
> Absolutely though we might want to just set up a wiki on knowledgeforge 
> and link to that from the web interface.

Would it be possible to build some of the tools into knowledgeforge? So 
one could have the 'Shakespeare suite' as an option alongside wordpress, 
moinmoin, svn, etc. I don't know how this would work technically.

> Sounds excellent. Look forward to seeing what develops and helping out.

Me too! ;-)

Jonathan