Max Planck Institutefor the History of Science

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009Schoepflin/Rieger December 4, 2009.

Scholarly Workbench for the Humanities:

an Open Access Infrastructure of the Max Planck Society

Urs SchoepflinSimone RiegerMax Planck Institutefor the History of ScienceParis, December 4, 2009

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

Current Situation ofCultural Heritage on the Internet

• lack of cultural heritage content– lack of quality– lack of cultural

techniques– lack of background data

• lack of infrastructure– lack of interfaces– lack of instruments for

analysis and publication of scholarly metadata

– lack of interoperability– lack of transparency

• uncertain future of the Web– lack of longevity,

stability and longterm archiving infrastructures

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

• 70 “seed collections” seed collections in several disciplines and thematic fields

• 206.000 documents• 506.000 high resolution images

of historical and cultural source documents and artefacts

• 240 videosequences of scientific source material

• 57,500 full-text page transcriptions in several languages

• network of ca. 150 knowledge weavers from more than 20 countries worldwide

Scholarly Workbench:Infrastructure for the Humanities<European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO), www.echo-project.eu>

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

Cultural Heritage on the Internet:

New Research Possibilities• research across disciplines, time periods, cultures

and languages• hyperlinks between data create new meaningful data• multiple usage of primary sources and scholarly data• types of primary sources define and form cross-

disciplinary standards• contextualization and scholary work create added value

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

• digitization of primary sources in adequate quality

• development of tools and workflows for analysis and presentation of primary sources• e.g. online

image manipulation for research questions

• open access to sources and tools

Scholarly Workbench:Access and Quality

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

Scholarly Workbench:Hyperlinks between

Primary Sources and Research Tools<http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/content/historymechanics/archimdesecho>

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

Scholarly Workbench:Annotations

<echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/content/chineseknowledge>

• creation and publication of annotations and commentaries directly related to specific items from scientific collections

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

• online publication of primary sources and scholarly metadata

• immediate verification of scholarly interpretation

Cultural Heritage on the Internet:New Forms of Dissemination

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

“Creation of Virtual Knowledge Spaces”<http://pratolino.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/>

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

“Our mission of disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society. New possibilities of knowledge dissemination not only through the classical form but also and increasingly through the open access paradigm via the Internet have to be supported. We define open access as a comprehensive source of human knowledge and cultural heritage that has been approved by the scientific community.”

Max Planck Society,“Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in Science and

Culture”, 2003

Strengtheningthe Open Access Policy

Urs Schoepflin & Simone Rieger, Max Planck Institute for the Histoy of Science, 2009

Thank you for your attention!

• Contact:

Urs SchoepflinMail: schoepfl@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Simone RiegerMail: rieger@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Web: http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

http://www.echo-project.eu