Bringing Lives to Light:Biography in Context

Ray R. LarsonBerkeley ISchool + Kyoto University Workshop

2009

Credits: Ryan Shaw, Michael Buckland, Jeanette Zerneke, Fred Gey, Barry Pateman, Dan Melia,

Matthew Holmberg

Born in Greene County, Tennessee, August 17, 1786, of Irish descent, his father having fought in the revolutionary war. He commenced the active duties of life, when twelve years old, by turning drover, and, instead of going to school, he chose the fortunes of an adventurer. He served under General Jackson, in some of the Indian wars, and became his fast friend.

<foaf:Person rdf:nodeID="david_crockett"> <rdfs:label>David Crockett</rdfs:label> <bio:event rdf:nodeID="creek_war" /> </foaf:Person>

<foaf:Person rdf:nodeID="andrew_jackson"> <rdfs:label>Andrew Jackson</rdfs:label> <bio:event rdf:nodeID="creek_war" /> </foaf:Person>

<bio:Event rdf:nodeID="creek_war"> <rdfs:label>The Creek War</rdfs:label> <bio:date>start=1813; end=1814;</bio:date>

<bio:place rdf:resource=”link to gazetteer”/> </bio:Event>

RDF Vocabularies

FOAF People

BIO Biographical events

GeoNames Places and spatial relationships

Basic Geo Latitude and Longitude

OWL-Time Temporal relationships

Dublin Core Descriptions, dates, etc.

Comment: Facet genres include other facets

Library subject headingsTopic – Geographic subdivision – Chronological subdivision

Place name gazetteerPlace name – Type – Spatial markers (Lat & long) – When

Time Period DirectoryPeriod name – Type – Time markers (Calendar) – Where

Biographical DictionaryPerson – Activity type – Time – Where – Who else

Reinventing the functionality of a reference collection

1. Context finder: Search support from text to reference works

2. Context builder: Make, retain notes and links to reference works

3. Context provider: Make reference works better by adding two-way links, e.g. text has links to place name list AND place name list has links to texts

Search for terms across journals

Results show particularItems with context for search

Selecting a particular item brings up the full text of the scannedJournal with search terms highlighted

Selecting “Detect names” submits the article for NLP processing and topics (What), locations (Where),events (When) and people (Who) are identified whenever possible

Clicking on a name highlights it in the text and opening the“links” list gives a number of resources to search for further information

Clicking on the CELT or Wikipedia links, for example, finds relevant contextual information

Reinventing the functionality of a reference collection

1. Context finder: Search support from text to reference works.

2. Context builder: Make, retain notes and links to reference works.

3. Context provider: Make reference works better by adding two-way links, e.g. text has links to place name list AND place name list has links to texts.

Named entities are linked to specific resources or dynamic searches over relevant databases.

Named entities not detected automatically can be added manually.

Named entities not detected automatically can be added manually.

Events and Event Mapping

Emma’s lectures and their context are examples of the kind of life events that we are have been trying to capture in a form that can be shared and used by scholars

One step in this direction is the Linking Open Descriptions of Event (LODE) interface

Representation of biographical information and events in RDF also permits use of a variety of tools for viewing and analysis

Events with people and places using Congressional BiographyData

Selecting a place limits displayed events to those occurring at that place

Selecting a particular event brings up a detailed view of the even information

Google Earth Interfacesfor Events Data