Open data in thearts and humanities

Jonathan Grayjonathan.gray@okfn.org / @jwyg

Open Knowledge Foundationhttp://www.okfn.org / @okfn

What?Why?How?

What?

'open data'?

'data' :

any information published instructured, machine readable form

For example?

Biographical dataLibrary/archive catalogue dataJournal index dataEncyclopedia dataDictionary/thesaurus dataGeospatial/temporal dataData on correspondence… and so on

'open' :

free for anyone to reuse for anypurpose without restriction(see opendefinition.org)

From legal uncertainty...

… to legal clarity.

Why?

How might open data be of valuein arts and humanities disciplines?

What do we mean byarts and humanities?

No single common thread(only 'family resemblances')

How can digital technologies aidresearch in the arts and humanities?

Researchers are clever,computers are stupid

Digital tools enable us to dosome things better...

… but many things will be doneas they were before.

What kinds of things couldnew digital tools help us to do better?

Enabling large scale collaboration

Mapping research/researchers

For example:

What works have been publishedabout Giambattista Basile?

What was published on Schopenhauerin English between 1900-1950?

Bibliographica:'Wordpress for bibliographies'

folktales.ed.ac.ukanamorphosis.kuleuven.be

novalis.hu-berlin.decriticallegalstudies.org/biblio

… and so on

Mapping citations / influence

Who read X?Who wrote about X?Who had a copy of a work by X?Who read someone who read X?Who borrowed a book by X?Who attended lectures on X?

Historical data:

Library lending dataOld lecture listsExhibition cataloguesConcert programmesExtracting data from nachlässe

Computer assisted analysis(text mining, contextualisation, ...)

For example:

Uses of the word 'democracy' inBoston from 1800-1900?

Which 19th century writers allude toEdward Young in relation to debatesabout authorship and originality?(And where do they mention him?)

For example:

When does Shakepeare first use theword 'football'?

Where does Nietzsche allude to anyof Emerson's essays?

Scholarship that was previouslypossible but very laborious

Representing complex informationin more intuitive ways

For example:

Graphing relations/citations(e.g. who wrote to who?)

Information on maps/timelines(e.g. reception history of Faust)

And so on ...

Opening up data enables peopleto do interesting things with it

Two metaphors:

Infrastructure(pipes, electricity, ...)

Raw material(soil...)

How?

1. Use and promote open licenses

For example:

CC-BYCC-BY-SACC0OdbLPDDL… and so on

(see opendefinition.org/licenses)

2. Make open datasets easy to find

E.g. register open data on ckan.net

3. Encourage others to open up

4. Listen to what researchers want

5. Tell people about your ideas

Join our open-humanitiesmailing list:

http://bit.ly/open-humanitieshttp://lists.okfn.org

jonathan.gray@okfn.orghttp://twitter.com/jwyg

http://identi.ca/jwyg

Image creditsPierre Vivant's Traffic Light Tree by William WarbyThe Green Light by Ted PercivalPlumbing bits by cmurtaughCompost 06/08/2007 by suavehouse113Get excited and make things by Matt Jones

These slides are available under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike License. While most imagesare available under an open license (see above) some are used for illustrative purposes and rights may bereserved by their creators.