SharedCanvas: A Collaborative Model for Medieval Manuscript Layout Dissemination

SharedCanvas: Collaborative Medieval Manuscript Model JCDL 2011, Ottawa, June 13-17

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SharedCanvas: A Collaborative Model for Medieval Manuscript Layout Dissemination

Robert Sanderson [email protected] Los Alamos National Laboratory Benjamin Albritton Stanford University Rafael Schwemmer e-codices Herbert Van de Sompel Los Alamos National Laboratory

http://www.shared-canvas.org/

This research is funded, in part, by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation


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Overview

•  Motivation

•  Requirements / Use Cases

•  Model by Example

•  Implementations

•  Conclusion


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Motivation

Digitization of cultural heritage important

•  Less than 1% of known medieval documents digitized to date

Digital surrogates enable remote research

•  Improve preservation of original and surrogate

•  Enable collaboration via shared annotation

BNF f.fr 113, folio 1 recto


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Motivation

Innovation needed in modeling and rendering: •  Embrace the Graph

Innovation in storage and inter-linking: •  Embrace the Web

Desires: •  Rich landscape of interconnected

repositories •  Improve efficiency through shared

development

Ms MurF: 10.5076/e-codices-kba-0003


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Architectural Requirements

Goal: •  Provide standardized input to presentation systems,

to allow interoperability between manuscript repositories

Architectural Requirements: •  Ability to model primarily textual items, where the individual

physical instance is an important cultural object •  Alignment of Images, Texts and Commentary per page •  Services and Content distributed between institutions


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Domain Requirements

Working at physical item level provides unique challenges!

1. Only parts of pages may be digitized

•  Only illuminations digitized

•  Fragments of pages

•  Multiple fragments per image

Cod. Sang. 1394: 10.5076/e-codices-csg-1394


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Domain Requirements

2. Page may not be digitized at all

•  Not "interesting" enough

•  Digitization destructive

•  Page no longer exists

•  Page only hypothetical

This page intentionally, but unfortunately,

left blank


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Domain Requirements

3. Non-rectangular pages

•  Fashionable heart shaped manuscripts

•  Fragments

•  Pages with foldouts

Facsimile of BNF Rothschild 2973 http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/montchen.html


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Domain Requirements

4. Alignment of multiple images of same object

•  Multi-spectral imaging

•  Multiple resolutions

•  Image tiling

•  Microfilm vs photograph

•  Multiple digitizations

Archimedes Palimpsest Multi-Spectral Images http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/


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Domain Requirements

5. Multiple page orders over time •  Rebinding

•  Scholarly disagreement on reconstruction

6. Different pages of the manuscript held by different institutions

Cod Sang 730: 10.5706/e-codices-csg-0730a


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Initial Approach: Transcribe Images Directly

But how to align multiple images, pages without images, fragments ???


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Canvas and Annotation Paradigm

•  A generic Canvas is an abstract space to build up a display •  HTML5, SVG, PDF, UI layout in software … even Powerpoint!

•  Our Canvas starts with no content, but has rectangular aspect ratio •  Top left/bottom right corner of canvas is equivalent corner of rectangular bounding box around page

•  Images and Text painted on to Canvas by distributed Annotation •  The Canvas is the Annotation's Target •  The Image/Text/Commentary is the Annotation's Body •  Both Body and Target support Segment descriptions:

•  Fragments •  Extract page/line text from full transcription


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Canvas to Page Relationship


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OAC Annotations to Paint Images


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OAC Annotations to Paint Text


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Transcription: M804


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Transcription: M804


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Fragments: Cod Sang 1394


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Missing Pages: Parker CCC 286


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Repeated Zones: Frauenfeld Y 112


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ORE Aggregations for Ordering


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Rebinding: BNF f.fr. 113-116


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SharedCanvas: Data Model


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Implementations

Repository Side: •  Parker Library on the Web (Stanford) •  Roman de la Rose (JHU) •  e-codices

Tools: •  T-PEN (transcription tool) •  Digital MappaeMundi (annotation tool)


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Implementations

Client Side:

•  Flipbook integration for navigation •  Djatoka for pan/zoom

Native implementation planned:

•  Graph navigation •  Integratation of scholarly annotations


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Conclusions

•  Distributed Canvas paradigm provides a coherent solution to modeling the layout of medieval manuscripts

•  Distributed Annotations across repositories for text, image and scholarly commentary •  Annotations at the heart of the model

•  Thus: Collaboration at the heart of the model •  Granular accuracy, from resource to non-rectangular segment •  Multiple page orders and Discovery via Aggregations

•  Likely appropriate for non Medieval Manuscript applications •  Scrolls, Newspapers, Scientific papers, … ?

•  Brings the humanist's primary research objects to their desktop in a powerful, extensible and interoperable fashion


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Thank You

Robert Sanderson [email protected] [email protected] @azaroth42

Web: http://www.shared-canvas.org/

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2925

Slides: http://slidesha.re/xxxxxx

Acknowledgements DMSTech Group: http://dmstech.group.stanford.edu/ Open Annotation Collaboration: http://www.openannotation.org/

Technology

SharedCanvas: A Collaborative Model for Medieval Manuscript Layout Dissemination