The Virtual Representation of the Past

Citation

Šauperl, A. (2011), "The Virtual Representation of the Past", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 67 No. 2, pp. 355-356. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411111109511

The first book of the series Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities brings a collection of works that derive from the expert seminar held in Sheffield in April 2006. The editor and the publisher very appropriately decided to launch a companion web site. Unfortunately the URL published in the book is incorrect (URL valid on August 9, 2010 http://%22/). One can, however, find all the web resources mentioned and cited in the book on this web site. The site appears to be updated.

Mark Greengrass and Lorna Hughes edited this volume to critically evaluate virtual representation of the past through digital media. This evaluation is prepared from at least three standpoints: philosophical (objectivity of the representation of the past), methodological (best ways of analysis and representation), and technical (appropriate application of new technologies). All three are addressed in the papers grouped in four chapters.

“The virtual representation of the text” is the first chapter with four papers. Andrew Prescott in the second chapter discusses the role of digital collections for historical research. He stresses that many available digitalized historical resources are not useful for research because of low quality reproduction. He warns that quality scientific analysis can only be done on high quality digitalized resources. Otherwise the resources will only add to the erosion and degradation of science and information in the “Google period”. Meg Twycoss shows how high quality representation and sophisticated techniques from various disciplines, including forensics, can lead a researcher in new areas that would otherwise remain unexplored. Donald Spaeth describes how important it is to structure research data in digital format to make it useful for further research. Well‐structured data in appropriately organized collections enable interoperability and research of new topics. This topic is taken further in the second chapter, “Virtual histories and pre‐histories finding means” with four chapters. Fabio Chiaravegna and collaborators focus on the technologies that would enable interoperability among different digital collections and new exploration routes. They also present several past and ongoing projects. Tim Hitchcock discusses changes that these new technologies bring to the historic research methodology and implications of those changes. Caroline Bowden then presents a project that would not be possible without the support of new technology. Qualitative research applications, which are a standard in many other disciplines, including information science, seem to have found way in historical research. The final paper in this chapter, written by Julian D. Richards and Catherine Hardboum describes several initiatives of structuring data and propose the most important facets (attributes). They present existing standardized terminology for describing these attributes and describe why the discipline needs more of such standardization. This issue is taken further in the third part “The virtual representation of space and time” by Manfred Thaller, who discusses problems with digital representation of space and time. Ian Gregory focuses on the representation of time specifically in the humanities, while Paul Cripps discusses the representation of space in archeology. Vincent Gaffney on the other hand speaks of the strengths and weaknesses of visualization in archaeology, arts and humanities. “The visual representation of historical objects and events” is the final part of the book, bringing more discussions on the influence of digitization on the disciplines. David Arnold proposes that digital representation has two purposes: documentation and analysis for researchers and professionals and presentation to the general public. The two audiences have different needs and this should also guide development of digital collections. This thesis is supported by Richard Beacham. He warns against inappropriate documentation and presentation of resources. As a guidance against that he proposes a set of transparency requirements. Anna Bentkowska‐Kafel discusses the importance of documentation in art history and compares a thorough documentation to a linguistic corpus. She stresses that such “corpi” were published in print and recently moved to digital media.

It is important to stress that all papers presented in this volume have a thorough bibliography, list many examples and numerous resources. The book also has color plates illustrating some of the discussions in the papers. These plates are awkwardly placed with the last chapter that includes plates rather that at the end of all papers. A very useful glossary of acronyms and terms is added, as well as a cumulative bibliography of resources used in the papers. Subject index takes up the final pages of the book. The three additions are very important for the book to work as a handbook and editors will hopefully keep this pattern for the series.

Although most of the examples are British, there are some other European examples or examples from other parts of the world. But it seems that the British lead the way in applying IT to arts and humanities. This book should then spur philosophical, methodological and technological discussions among the researchers in the discipline. Many other disciplines would be able to benefit and add to this discussion, information science among them.