20111031 - Online Jewish content in a broader context

1. Internet resources for historical research: Jewish content in a broader context Judaica Europeana Digital Humani<es Workshop 31 October 2011 -‐ Bri0sh Library Gerben Zaagsma Huygens Ins*tute for the History of the Netherlands Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences 1

2. Introduc)on Digital Agenda for Europe: Digital Libraries Initiative Europes cultural and scientific riches at a click of a mouseIn ancient times, the library of Alexandria was said to contain up to 70% of all human knowledge. The challenge for the digital age is to do even better than that – and make the result last longer.Source: h@p://ec.europa.eu/informa0on_society/ac0vi0es/digital_libraries/index_en.htm. 2

3. Introduc)onSource: Study Report Numeric-‐ Sta0s0cs on digi0sa0on of cultural materials in Europe (2009):h=p://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/telearn-‐digicult/numeric-‐study_en.pdf. 3

4. Introduc)oneNumerate: h=p://www.enumerate.eu/. 4

5. Introduc)onDigital sources avalanche... ➡ increasing amount of digital content in Jewish Studies... but do we ask enough ques<ons?• selec5on: what do we get and why? • implica5ons for historical research?➡ digital source cri5cism: using digital resources 5

6. Outline1. overview of digital sources for Jewish historical research2. using digital sources3. concluding remarks 6

7. Jewish digital sources: an overview 7

8. Jewish digital sources: an overview tekst 8

9. Jewish digital sources: an overview teksth=p://sammlungen.ub.uni-‐frankfurt.de/judaica 8

17. Jewish digital sources: an overviewh=p://dlibra.psnc.pl/index.php?lang=en. 10

18. Jewish digital sources: an overviewCBN Polona: h=p://www.polona.pl/dlibra/. 11

19. Jewish digital sources: an overviewPIONIER Network Digital Libraries Federa*on: h=p://Uc.pionier.net.pl/owoc/main 12

20. Jewish digital sources: an overviewePaveldas: h=p://www.epaveldas.lt/. 13

21. Jewish digital sources: an overviewh=p://www.jpress.org.il/view-‐english.asp. 14

23. Jewish digital sources: an overviewh=p://digital.cjh.org/. 15

24. Jewish digital sources: an overviewh=p://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/chss/jws/yizkorbooks_intro.cfm 16

26. Jewish digital sources: an overviewh=p://www.judaica-‐europeana.eu/. 17

27. Jewish digital sources: an overviewJudaica Europeana is diﬀerent:• systema5c publica5on & integra5on of digital collec5ons rela5ng to (urban) Jewish history all over Europe• Europeana built for the seman5c web: Linked Open Data 18

28. using digital sources 19

29. Life cycle of historical informa)onBoonstra, Onno, Leen Breure and Peter Doorn, Past, present and future of historical informa0on science (Amsterdam, 2004), p17. 20

30. Life cycle of historical informa)on crea4on retrieval analysisBoonstra, Onno, Leen Breure and Peter Doorn, Past, present and future of historical informa0on science (Amsterdam, 2004), p17. 20

31. Crea)on • crea5on is preceded by selec<on 21

32. Crea)onquan0ty can obscure the awareness that selec0on takes place 22

33. Crea)onquan0ty can obscure the awareness that selec0on takes place 22

34. Crea)on• crea5on is preceded by selec5on• selec5on reﬂects: -‐ preserva5on concerns -‐ academic research agendas -‐ public discourses on the past, processes of memorialisa5on, na5onal interests 23

35. Crea)on• crea5on is preceded by selec5on• selec5on reﬂects: -‐ preserva5on concerns -‐ academic research agendas -‐ public discourses on the past, processes of memorialisa5on, na5onal interests• selec5on is interlinked with funding 24

36. Crea)onRoy Rosenzweig:“If na5onal archives were part of the projects of state-‐building and na5onalism, then why should states support post-‐na5onal digital archives?”Roy Rosenzweig, ‘Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era’, The American Historical Review 108 (2003) 735-‐762, 752. 25

37. Crea)on• Germany: systema5c eﬀort to save the printed Jewish past for the digital future• former East bloc: a sense of na5onal pride and of newly found independence in the post-‐communist era• framing the European project: crea5ng a sense of European heritage ... oRen the na0on or suprana0on looms in the background, either in terms of an agenda or in terms of funding or both 26

38. Crea)onWhat about “marginal” and non-‐na<onal topics?Example = Yiddish : Yiddish does not belonging to one par0cular na0on: who takes responsibility for saving “transna0onal” heritage?the digital paradox: marginality reinforced? 27

39. Crea)onfrom philanthropy... 28

40. Crea)on... to supra-‐na0onal ins0tu0ons coming to the rescue: Judaica Europeana as an online, digital con0nua0on of Council of Europe ac0vi0es 29

41. Crea)on• why do we get it: selec5on & funding• what do we get: type of sources 30

42. Crea)onPathfinder Survey Result. Summary analysis of a survey to test defini0ons, terms and ways of measuring digi0sa0on ac0vi0es in cultural ins0tu0ons in Europe (Numeric report 2007):h=p://www.numeric.ws/uploaded_files/Report_of_Pathfinder_Survey_0712056122007175432.pdf. 31

43. Retrieval“normal” search engines 32

44. Retrievalmetadata search engines like OAIster and BASE (OAI-‐PMH):h=p://oaister.worldcat.org/; h=p://www.base-‐search.net/. 33

45. RetrievalEHPS: h=p://primary-‐sources.eui.eu/. 34

46. Retrieval• querying digital resources • full-‐text search: OCR versus non-‐OCR• RTL languages> how the state of technology can create uneven possibili5es• metadata 35

47. Analysis• what happens to context? 36

48. Analysis Historical Jewish Press:Bulle0n de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle: full-‐text search = socialistes 37

49. Analysis Historical Jewish Press:Bulle0n de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle: full-‐text search = socialistes 37

50. Analysis 37

51. Concluding remarks• digital sources for Jewish history and the place of Judaica Europeana• crea5on: selec5on and funding• retrieval: loca5ng and querying resources• analysis: context, context, context... 38

52. Concluding remarksThe future: historical research in a u<litarian age> from oﬄine to online? if so we have a responsibility to ensure that what is oﬀered online represents the broadest possible spectrum of sources related to the subject we are interested in. 39