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Modeling Data Complexity in Public History and Cultural Heritage

  • Gioele Barabucci , Francesca Tomasi and Fabio Vitali
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Handbook of Digital Public History
This chapter is in the book Handbook of Digital Public History

Abstract

The publication by Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums of metadata about their collections is fundamental for the creation of our shared digital cultural heritage. Yet, we argue, these digital collections are, on one hand, of little use to scholars (because of the inconsistent quality of the published records), and, on the other hand, they fail to attract the interest of the general public (because of their dry content). These problems are exacerbated by the current move towards public history, where citizens are no longer just passive actors, but play an active role in contributing, maintaining and curating historical records, leading some to question the trustworthiness of collections in which non-scholars have the ability to contribute. The core issue behind all these problems is, we believe, a (doomed) search for objectivity, often caused by the fact that data models ignore the derivative and stratified nature of cultural objects, and allow only one point of view to be expressed. In turn this forces the publication of bowdlerized records and removes any venue for the expression of disagreement and different opinions. We propose an approach named “contexts” to solve these issues. The adoption of contexts makes it possible to support multiple points of view inside the same dataset, not only allowing multiple scholars to provide their own possibly contrasting points of view, but also making it possible to incorporate additions, corrections and more complex kinds of commentaries from citizens without compromising the trustworthiness of the whole dataset.

Abstract

The publication by Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums of metadata about their collections is fundamental for the creation of our shared digital cultural heritage. Yet, we argue, these digital collections are, on one hand, of little use to scholars (because of the inconsistent quality of the published records), and, on the other hand, they fail to attract the interest of the general public (because of their dry content). These problems are exacerbated by the current move towards public history, where citizens are no longer just passive actors, but play an active role in contributing, maintaining and curating historical records, leading some to question the trustworthiness of collections in which non-scholars have the ability to contribute. The core issue behind all these problems is, we believe, a (doomed) search for objectivity, often caused by the fact that data models ignore the derivative and stratified nature of cultural objects, and allow only one point of view to be expressed. In turn this forces the publication of bowdlerized records and removes any venue for the expression of disagreement and different opinions. We propose an approach named “contexts” to solve these issues. The adoption of contexts makes it possible to support multiple points of view inside the same dataset, not only allowing multiple scholars to provide their own possibly contrasting points of view, but also making it possible to incorporate additions, corrections and more complex kinds of commentaries from citizens without compromising the trustworthiness of the whole dataset.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1: Historiography
  5. The Historiographical Foundations of Digital Public History 17
  6. Crowdsourcing and User Generated Content: The Raison d’Être of Digital Public History 35
  7. Sharing Authority in Online Collaborative Public History Practices 49
  8. Shifting the Balance of Power: Oral History and Public History in the Digital Era 61
  9. Digital Public Archaeology 77
  10. Identities – a historical look at online memory and identity issues 87
  11. Digital Environmental Humanities 97
  12. Combining Values of Museums and Digital Culture in Digital Public History 107
  13. Open Access: an opportunity to redesign scholarly communication in history 121
  14. Past and Present in Digital Public History 131
  15. Digital Hermeneutics: The Reflexive Turn in Digital Public History? 139
  16. Part 2: Contexts
  17. Archivists as Peers in Digital Public History 149
  18. History Museums: Enhancing Audience Engagement through Digital Technologies 165
  19. Interactive Museum & Exhibitions in Digital Public History Projects and Practices: An Overview and the Unusual Case of M9 Museum 175
  20. Digital Public History in Libraries 185
  21. Publishing Public History in the Digital Age 199
  22. “Learning Public History by doing Public History” 211
  23. Spaces: What’s at Stake in Their Digital Public Histories? 223
  24. Digital Public History in the United States 235
  25. Technology and Historic Preservation: Documentation and Storytelling 243
  26. Social Media: Snapshots in Public History 259
  27. Part 3: Best Practices
  28. Curation: Toward a New Ethic of Digital Public History 277
  29. Data Visualization for History 291
  30. Mapping and Maps in Digital and Public History 301
  31. Gaming and Digital Public History 309
  32. Individuals in the Crowd: Privacy, Online Participatory Curation, and the Public Historian as Private Citizen 317
  33. Building Communities, Reconciling Histories: Can We Make a More Honest History? 327
  34. Cybermemorials: Remembrance and Places of Memory in the Digital Age 337
  35. Living History: Performing the Past 349
  36. Activist Digital Public History 359
  37. Digital Public History: Family History and Genealogy 369
  38. Digital Personal Memories: The Archiving of the Self and Public History 377
  39. Planning with the Public: How to Co-develop Digital Public History Projects? 385
  40. As Seen through Smartphones: An Evolution of Historic Information Embedment 395
  41. Part 4: Technology, Media, Data and Metadata
  42. What does it Meme? Public History in the Internet Memes Era 405
  43. Historical GIS 419
  44. Content Management 431
  45. Linked Open Data & Metadata 439
  46. Big Data and Public History 447
  47. Modeling Data Complexity in Public History and Cultural Heritage 459
  48. History and Video Games 475
  49. Historians as Digital Storytellers: The Digital Shift in Narrative Practices for Public Historians 485
  50. The Audiovisual Dimension & the Digital Turn in Public History Practices 495
  51. Digital Public History and Photography 505
  52. Exploring Large-Scale Digital Archives – Opportunities and Limits to Use Unsupervised Machine Learning for the Extraction of Semantics 517
  53. Infographics and Public History 531
  54. List of Contributors 545
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110430295-041

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1: Historiography
  5. The Historiographical Foundations of Digital Public History 17
  6. Crowdsourcing and User Generated Content: The Raison d’Être of Digital Public History 35
  7. Sharing Authority in Online Collaborative Public History Practices 49
  8. Shifting the Balance of Power: Oral History and Public History in the Digital Era 61
  9. Digital Public Archaeology 77
  10. Identities – a historical look at online memory and identity issues 87
  11. Digital Environmental Humanities 97
  12. Combining Values of Museums and Digital Culture in Digital Public History 107
  13. Open Access: an opportunity to redesign scholarly communication in history 121
  14. Past and Present in Digital Public History 131
  15. Digital Hermeneutics: The Reflexive Turn in Digital Public History? 139
  16. Part 2: Contexts
  17. Archivists as Peers in Digital Public History 149
  18. History Museums: Enhancing Audience Engagement through Digital Technologies 165
  19. Interactive Museum & Exhibitions in Digital Public History Projects and Practices: An Overview and the Unusual Case of M9 Museum 175
  20. Digital Public History in Libraries 185
  21. Publishing Public History in the Digital Age 199
  22. “Learning Public History by doing Public History” 211
  23. Spaces: What’s at Stake in Their Digital Public Histories? 223
  24. Digital Public History in the United States 235
  25. Technology and Historic Preservation: Documentation and Storytelling 243
  26. Social Media: Snapshots in Public History 259
  27. Part 3: Best Practices
  28. Curation: Toward a New Ethic of Digital Public History 277
  29. Data Visualization for History 291
  30. Mapping and Maps in Digital and Public History 301
  31. Gaming and Digital Public History 309
  32. Individuals in the Crowd: Privacy, Online Participatory Curation, and the Public Historian as Private Citizen 317
  33. Building Communities, Reconciling Histories: Can We Make a More Honest History? 327
  34. Cybermemorials: Remembrance and Places of Memory in the Digital Age 337
  35. Living History: Performing the Past 349
  36. Activist Digital Public History 359
  37. Digital Public History: Family History and Genealogy 369
  38. Digital Personal Memories: The Archiving of the Self and Public History 377
  39. Planning with the Public: How to Co-develop Digital Public History Projects? 385
  40. As Seen through Smartphones: An Evolution of Historic Information Embedment 395
  41. Part 4: Technology, Media, Data and Metadata
  42. What does it Meme? Public History in the Internet Memes Era 405
  43. Historical GIS 419
  44. Content Management 431
  45. Linked Open Data & Metadata 439
  46. Big Data and Public History 447
  47. Modeling Data Complexity in Public History and Cultural Heritage 459
  48. History and Video Games 475
  49. Historians as Digital Storytellers: The Digital Shift in Narrative Practices for Public Historians 485
  50. The Audiovisual Dimension & the Digital Turn in Public History Practices 495
  51. Digital Public History and Photography 505
  52. Exploring Large-Scale Digital Archives – Opportunities and Limits to Use Unsupervised Machine Learning for the Extraction of Semantics 517
  53. Infographics and Public History 531
  54. List of Contributors 545
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