Linking Primary and Secondary by Microformats

Linking Primary and Secondary
Sources by Microformats

Matteo Romanello, Univ. quot;Ca' Foscariquot; di Venezia

05/22/08 1

Rationale

• In the Field of Classics
– Electronic publications need to be BOOTSTRAPPED
– Scholars need (and deserve) more effective research tools to be provided

• Switching from content holding to service providing
– Will start a virtuous circle
• Publishers (e.g. of e-journals) provide more really effective Value
Added Services to scholars
• Scholars are encouraged to use online publications
• Publishers will invest more money on electronic publishing
– Favors the Open Access to research findings
• Value Added Services could make the OA economically sustainable
• What services are most important for philologists and scholars of
Classics?
– Canonical references are meaningful entry points to information (see
importance of indices locorum within monographs...)
– A more powerful linking framework for primary and secondary sources!

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M. Romanello, Linking Primary and Secondary Sources by Microformats
Trends in Computational Philology: Trends in Computational and Formal Philology

Linking primary and secondary sources

The first attempt... ...an e-scholium on the Web scale

Venetus A: Marcianus Graecus Z. 454,
<http://chs75.harvard.edu/manuscripts/image-viewer>

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Actual Scenarios

Google search L'Année Philologique search

4 /14

State of the art: tightly coupled approach

REFERENCE LINKING FEATURE
• Hard-linking (1 to 1 mapping)
• Linking system
– Peculiar to a given project
– Language-dependent
– Closed system



<a class=quot;citationquot; target=quot;_blankquot;
href=quot;http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.
+Sol.+19.1quot;>Plut. <em>Sol.</em> 19.1</a>

5 /14

Proposal: loosely coupled approach
• Desired linking system:
– Semantic
– Open-ended
– Language-neutra

• Layers separation:
1) Metadata contained in canonical
text references
2) Protocols and Programming
Interfaces (API)
3) Services

• Glue:
– Client side application

• Implementation:
– Microformats
– CTS (Canonical Texts Services)
URNs

6 /14

Microformatted references

1 <a class=quot;citationquot; target=quot;_blankquot; href=quot; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-
2 bin/ptext?lookup=Plut.+Sol.+19.1quot;>
3 <cite style=quot;quot; class=quot;ctrefquot;>
4 <abbr class=quot;ctauthorquot; title=quot;urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007quot;>Plut.</abbr>
5 <em>
6 <abbr class=quot;ctworkquot; title=quot;urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg007quot;>Sol.</abbr>
7 </em>
8 <abbr class=quot;rangequot; title=quot;19.1quot;>19.1</abbr>
9 <abbr class=quot;editionquot; title=quot;Bernadotte Perinquot;/>
10 </cite>
11 </a>

* URNs and implicit information (e.g. Edition statement) are hidden by using Cascading
Stylesheets (CSS) -> separation of content and presentation

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Microformats and CTS URNs
• MICROFORMATS
– from Blogs and Web 2.0
– Microformats community -> pattern and design principles
– Compounds of Plain Old Semantic HTML (POSH) tags
– Aimed at embedding semantic data in HTML elements
– Interest on semantic encoding of citation formats: hBib draft, Microformat
for bibliographic references to modern publications

• CTS URNs
– Lie on the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records)
model
– Provide Uniform resource names (isbn:xxxxxxx) for Canonical Texts
References
– Unambiguous identifiers for
• Authors (Homer: urn:cts:greekLit:tlg001)
• Works (Iliad: urn:cts:greekLit:tlg001)
• Text passages (1.1: urn:cts:greekLit:tlg001.tlg001)
• Work Exemplars (Venetus A: 1.1 Holy Cross / Furman Fellows edd.:
• urn:cts:greekLit:tlg001.tlg001.greekLit:msA-tei)

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Microformats suitability

• Least Power Rule
• Forward-compatibility with Resource Description Framework (RDF)
through GRDDL technology
• Rapid and Wide success/adoption (FF3 and IE8)
• More HTML-compliant than RDFa and eRDF

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CTS Protocol: building a distributed library

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CTS Protocol: building a distributed library

11 /14

Microformat for Canonical Text References in action

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Microformat for Canonical Text References in action

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What's Next?
E-scholium
• Semantic parser for canonical
texts references: from raw text
extracts a microformatted
reference

Primary Secondary
• Figure out new services to be
Source Sources
built upon CTS URNs and
Microformats...
– CTS harvester
– Aggregator of relevant
information from the whole Web
– Allows one to browse different
exemplars of a works (available
Secondary Sources
through CTS) and at the same
time displays related information
(bibliographic records relevant
to the reading context)

14 /14

Linking Primary and Secondary by Microformats

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