TSLIM

TSLIM is the research project blog for a 3-year project at the University of Vienna, funded by the REWIRE programme – a Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions COFUND project funded by the European Commission. TSLIM is a multidisciplinary project, based in the Digital Humanities group in the Department if History. It deals with topics which fall broadly under the themes of digital humanities, museum studies, data science, critical data studies and digital heritage studies. The objectives of the project are to examine the use of linked data in museums, and in ethnographic museums in particular. The digitisation of cultural heritage data is creating previously unimagined possibilities for humanities researchers, making more museum, archive and library materials available online than ever. Scholars are able to overcome many of the logistical challenges of using multiple primary sources, such as the fragmentation and geographic dispersal of collections. Many cultural heritage collections have embraced the semantic web as a mechanism for opening up their databases, allowing collections to become interconnected, and creating networks of highly complex, rich and heterogenous data. However, the highly contextualised nature of humanities sources and the need to make allowance for complexity and ambiguity when interpreting them, mean that the rigid data model of the semantic web does not always provide enough contextual data for the complex evidentiary reasoning that takes place in humanities research. At the same time, researchers using this data have to grapple with data of inconsistent quality and depth. One of the objectives of TSLIM is to develop an evaluation framework with a specific focus on the sustained linking of ethnographic materials, which will allow scholar to evaluate the completeness of the data they are using. At the same time, the research will also contribute to increasingly urgent discussions about how to manage this vast and growing body of data, by conducting a nuanced and rigorous study of both LOD creation and exploitation. In a context where searching for digital content is increasingly taken to mean ‘just Google it’, it is crucial for data producers and data consumers be able to find what they need. To do this, it is essential to devise new approaches to how the data is stored, categorised and made available. The blog will be used to track the progress of the project, announce any workshops, seminars and other collaborative activities which take place under the auspices of the project, and provide a space for regular, informal but considered writing and reflection. It is expected to be of interest to digital humanities scholars, data scientists, museum professionals and other humanities scholars.

Rebecca Kahn

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