The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI, “Eek-eye”) Michael Buckland

The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI, “Eek-eye”)

Michael BucklandCo-Director, ECAI, I&AS

Emeritus Professor, School of Information

UCB Libraries Arts and Humanities CouncilFeb 5, 2009

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Origins Lewis Lancaster’ interest in how Buddhism changed in time and

space as it moved north out of India into the Himalaya then east to China, Japan and Korea. The problem of maps.

ECAI formed at a meeting of scholars in 1997.

ECAI’s dual existence:

1. Behaves as an informal international collaboration of scholars, librarians, IT experts, and others.

2. Formally a unit reporting to the Dean of International & Area Studies, some administrative support but no money.

Initial pump-priming grants from the Lilley Foundation and others. Subsequently small grants (usually for specific purposes) and grant-supported research projects.

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The Mission of ECAI is to advance scholarship through increased attention to place and time. An initiative!

Objectives1. Advance a vision and understanding of ECAI’s Mission.2. Encourage the development of communities of interest and

collaboration.3. Identify or provide exemplary good practice.4. Promote the development, availability, and adoption of needed

techniques and technology.5. Advocate the development and adoption of standards and

interoperability.6. Seek resources to support the mission.7. Sustain an evolving strategic plan.8. Strengthen the community through education and communication.9. Provide cost-effective organizational support.

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ECAI’s Program

1. Clearinghouse of georeferenced internet accessible resources and support for TimeMap software.

2. Two international conferences a year: Moscow, Berkeley, Perth, Hanoi, next Williamsburg.

3. Exemplary e-publications.

4. Training workshops.

5. Research projects.

6. Community building and best practices.

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ECAI’s Current Research and Development Program

1. Religious Atlas of China and Himalaya (Luce Foundation).

2. “Blue dot” high dimensional visualization of the Korean Buddhist canon (NSF)

3. Context for biographical text (Institute of Museum & Library Services) ecai.org/imls2006

4. Context and relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies (NEH & IMLS). ecai.org/neh2007

5. Austronesian languages and cultures, esp. in Taiwan (UCB Shung-ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines Endowment Fund)

6. Several “cultural atlas” projects: Varied online publications with some geographical emphasis, e.g. ECAI Iraq; Begram ivories.

7. Digital Sanskrit Buddhist canon (Ralph Moon and others).

8. Several other informal efforts, e.g. Medieval Latin place names.

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All religions! Funding largely passed on to scholars elsewhere to clean up and geo-register existing data and make it interoperable.

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Islam in China: Mosques are not mainly in the west.

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Detailed metadata from each mosque.

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”Blue dot” High Dimensional Visualization of Korean Buddhist Canon. (NSF) – Lewis Lancaster & Howie Lan.

Abstraction of text of wood printing blocks allows analyses of Korean (Chinese language) Buddhist canon and relatiing of any glyph to metadata and contextualizing resources, such as data of religious atlas of China and Himalaya.

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Blocks are very regular.

Could do the same with book of printed pages.

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Any type of glyph can be color-coded and visualized.

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Glyphs coded by who the translator was . . .

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Coded by monastery of origin.

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Narrative rings can be made visible . . .

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Three projects on search support: - Support for the learner (2004-06) ecai.org/imls2004 - Biographical texts (2006-09) ecai.org/imls2006 - Irish Studies (2007-09) ecai.org/neh2007

Part of a long-term “metadata” program. Teamwork by several people: Aitao Chen, Fredric Gey, Ray Larson, Dan Melia, Barry Pateman, Vivien Petras, Ryan Shaw, and others.

Supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Some ideas about learning. . . .

1. Understanding requires knowing the context. “Knowledge is power” (Sir Francis Bacon) implies understanding relationships.

2. So libraries should support finding the context of anything! What? Where? When? Who? Whatever!

3. Best place to read is in a library among reference works.

4. The reference library has been largely forgotten in the move of library services into an online environment.

5. Using reference resources online should be as easy as Google and the Wikipedia to use and but also as reliable as a library reference collection.

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Textwith a interesting details.Who was she?Where is that?What is this?What else was happening? Reader

Library resourcesEncyclopediasAtlases, place nameBiographical dictionariesBibliographiesLibrary catalogStatistical seriesetc., etc. . . . .

In a paper environment, reading inside a library is the best place to learn. It is well designed to explain the context!

How do we move this situation into an internet environment?

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Present situation – 1

-- Definition: “For the purpose of the research agenda, digital reference is defined . . . as the use of human intermediaries to answer questions in a digital environment.”

Empowerment of librarians is good, but library science is really about designing services that empower library users, an even higher goal.

“Library reference service in a digital environment,” Library and Information Science Research 30, no 2 (2008): 81-85.http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/libref.pdf

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Present situation – 2: Stage of technology change.

Adoption of new technology typically in two stages:

First – Stage 1 - use new technology to do the same thing better.

Second - Stage 2 - exploit the full capability of the new technology to do different better things.

The Internet Public Library reference department is a good example of Stage 1,

Time now for Stage 2! What would it look like?

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Emanuel Goldberg, b. Moscow, 1881; son of Grigorii Goldberg; Univ. of Moscow, 1900-04; Ph.D w. Robert Luther, Leipzig Univ., 1906; Assistant, Adolf Miethe, TU Charlottenburg, 1906-07; Prof, Akad. f. graphische Künste, Leipzig, 1907-17; ICA, Zeiss Ikon, Dresden, 1917-1933; Kinamo cine camera, 1921; microdots, 1925; search engine, 1927; Contax 35 mm camera 1932; kidnapped by Nazi SA; refugee in Paris, 1933-37; Laboratory, Palestine, Israel, 1937; d. 1970.

WHO?

Click a name to search for an internet resource.

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WHERE?

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WHAT?

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The reference library is open from

9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The “9 to 5” problem

Students are writing papers at home on laptops from

9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.

What is wrong with this situation?

What can librarians do about it?

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Other problems with the paper reference collection . . .

-- Designed for community, not for an individual.

-- Designed for many queries, not the current one.

-- Not volatile.

-- Guides but no index. One doesn’t really know where to look. Little green lights on shelves indicating which volumes mention this topic would be nice.

-- Multimedia in theory; bound volumes in practice.

-- Distant and disconnected from work practices: Much error-prone note-talking and transcription.

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Building the functionality of a reference collection.

1. Context finder: Search support from text to reference works.

2. Context builder: Make, retain notes and links to reference works.

3. Context provider: Make reference works better by adding two-way links, e.g. text has links to place name list AND place name list has links to texts.

Demos at http://metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/

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Initial sketch for “Context Finding / Building” interface.

Save search path

Save link & notes as “stand-off” markup.

Save link & notes as embedded mark-up.

Insert / block text

Define facet

Ranked lists of suggested resources for each facet chosen

Display of search result

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CORPUS

FRAGMENT CONTEXT

Context Finder: Ad hoc searches. Looking outwards, not inwards!

Reference works

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Scanned text Named Entities

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Cursor over a name highlights every mention of that name in the text.

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Named entities are linked to specific resources or dynamic searches over relevant databases.

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2. Context builder: Make, retain notes and links to reference works.

3. Context provider: Make reference works better by adding two-way links, e.g. text has links to place name list AND place name list has links to texts.

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CORPUS

FRAGMENT CONTEXT

Context Builder: Query, source, result saved as markup in text; and in notes.

Reference work

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-- Disconnect with work practices: Much error-prone note-talking and transcription.

The case of editing of historical papers . . .

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2. Context builder: Making, retaining notes / links to reference works.

3. Context provider: Enriching reference works by adding reverse links, e.g. place name gazetteer mentions where a place is mentioned in texts.

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CORPUS

FRAGMENT CONTEXT

Context Provider: Also reverse links from resource back to text. Now two-way!

Reference work

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Facet Vocabulary Displays Reference GenreWHAT Topics Cross-references EncyclopediaWHERE Places Maps Atlas, place listWHEN Periods Timeline ChronologyWHO Persons Relationships Biogr.dictionary

Reference Genre Vocabulary Displays FacetEncyclopedia Topics Cross-references WHATAtlas, place list Places Maps WHEREChronology Time Timelines WHEN

Biogr. Dictionary Persons Relationships WHO

Paper-based reference collection: Codex determines structure and use.

Reversed in a digital environment: Metadata forms infrastructure.

Build a union index, so you know where too look! Little green lights!

http://metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/

Search interest

Search interest

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Importance of inverting the relationship between the part and the whole:

-- Indexes are created by inversion -- Union indexes: Tell you which reference work mentions

your query, like the Science Citation Index. . . as in Google.

Use dynamic links to for real time searches the latest version of the best resources; and, for vocabulary:Search term recommender systems.

Demos at http://metadata.berkeley.edu/demos/[email protected]

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Who is ECAI?Co-Directors: Lewis Lancaster, Michael BucklandTechnical support: Jeanette Zerneke, Kim CarlStaff: Hui NieLocally active: Howie Lan, Ralph Moon, Ray Larson (and

metadata group), . . . .“Affiliates”: Several hundred scholars, librarians, cultural heritage

specialists, . . .Joint conferences with Computer Applications in Archaeology

(CAA), Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC), etc.Opportunistic partnerships: Emma Goldman Papers; Celtic

Studies; Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Queen’s University, Belfast; Fudan Univ., Shanghai,

Numerous evolving informal ad hoc collaborations as time, energy, and funding permit.

Visit: ecai.org [email protected]

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The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI, “Eek-eye”) Michael Buckland