Presentation given by Rimvydas Laužikas, Justinas Jaronis and Ingrida Vosyliūtė
Vilnius University Faculty of Communication, Lithuania
LoCloud Conference
Sharing local cultural heritage online with LoCloud services
Amersfoort, Netherlands
5 February 2016
Beyond the space: the LoCloud Historical Place Names microservice
1. Local content in a Europeana cloud
Beyond the space: the LoCloud Historical Place
Names microservice
LoCloud is funded by the
European Commission's ICT Policy Support Programme
Rimvydas Laužikas, Justinas Jaronis, Ingrida Vosyliūtė
Vilnius University Faculty of Communication
4. • Are people who are
from Albion there?
Insulae Albion et Hibernia cum minoribus adjacentibus, 1600-1699,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans,
CPL GE DD-2987 (9732), [Europeana.eu].
6. • Have you ever been to
Aquinicum?
Plattegrond van Buda, 1686, Harmanus van Loon, Lodewijk XIV (koning van
Frankrijk), 1693 - 1696, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1892-A-16766,
[Europeana.eu].
8. • Do you know where
Atlantis is located?
Carte de l'Atlantide : d'après Platon et Diodore, 1775, Bibliothèque nationale
de France, département Cartes et plans, GE D-17772, [Europeana.eu].
9. • The set of place names in historical sources.
Three points of view: geographical (earth sciences), historical (humanities), IT
(technical).
Two understandings: geo-name as tool [for information management], geo-name as
intangible heritage.
Technically [in mean of CIDOC-CRM] an HPN is a place appellation, which may
refer to several places, because its use may change over time.
On the other hand, the place as an object is determined in GIS as a defined
immovable geographic object: point, polygon or a line on a map
A place name can be understood as an historical identifier for several places and (or)
as a kind of intangible heritage (“non-material products of our minds”).
What are Historical Place Names?
10. 1. Interoperability.
[Europeana.eu, 09-02-2015: Lietuva: 39697;
Lithuania: 28948; Litauen: 11308;
Lituanie: 8770; Litwa: 20647; ...].
2. Conservation of intangible heritage.
[HPN as a link between past and present
(“enduring voices”), losing HPN is
losing our cultural signs].
3. Creation of European “multi-
narrative”/”political narrative”.
[“the mind and body of Europe”].
What are the problems?
Sebastian Munster. Europa Regina, Cosmographia, Basel, 1570,
[Wikipedia.org].
11. What is the possible solution?
• HPN microservice
12. What is the HPN
microservice?
• A semi-automatic historical geo-
information management function
and web service.
• An application which enables
local cultural institutions to
collaborate in developing the
Thesaurus of HPN and enriching
ingested metadata.
• Developed by Vilnius University
Faculty of Communication in
collaboration with LoCloud
partners.
14. User Case I:
Local history researcher
[unregistered user]
• To verify the availability of a
historical place name in the
LoCloud HPN Thesaurus
• To get information about the
interconnection of HPN with
contemporary place names, its
linguistic variations and
geographical coordinates
• To propose [crowdsource] a new
historic place name for the
LoCloud HPN Thesaurus
15. User Case II:
Local history database administrator
[registered user]
• To export selected LoCloud HPN
Thesaurus data sets.
• To interconnect contemporary
place names, different historical
and linguistic place name forms
and geographical coordinates.
• To enrich a local system with
exported HPN geo-data.
• To collaborate in developing the
LoCloud HPN Thesaurus by
sending local data and contacting
us.
16. Next steps
• Polygon data
• Enrichment of content of HPN Thesauri
• Improve multilinguistics by connection with Wikipedia
• Development of HPN “toolbox” (e.g. by historical maps creating tool,
historical geo-information analysis tool and etc.)
• Enabling of interoperability between LoCloud HPN services and
another similar tools
• HPN as part of national service:
Integral Thesaurus of historical places, personal names and
historical chronology as part of project
“Virtual Electronic Heritage System (VEPS) 3”
17. Thank you for your attention
Find HPN microservice: <http://tautosaka.llti.lt/en/unitedgeo>
Find all LoCloud tools /services: <http://support.locloud.eu/tiki-index.php?page=HomePage>
Email us: <rimvydas.lauzikas@kf.vu.lt>