Dr. hab. Marek Słoń, Dr. hab. Bogumił Szady
14 December 2018, 12.30
Instytut Informacji Naukowej i Bibliotekoznawstwa UWr, pl. Uniwersytecki 9/13
Room 104
The Digital Revolution has once again raised questions about the sense, functions and forms of editing historical sources, which have been so far determined by the invention of print. It is necessary to distinguish between editing and publishing an old item. Only the first has a research character and is never completed; on the contrary – it is a phase of the great process comprising all kinds of work on historical heritage, whose essence is the interpretation by a researcher, which assumes various forms and whose functionality depends first of all on the internal coherency, connection with what has been done so far and being open to the new. An important role in work done by a publisher of historical sources is played by databases, especially special ones. Bases of special data determine also the development of modern geography and historical cartography. They are basic tools for gathering, analysing and presenting the information about old natural, cultural and political landscapes. The geographical space has turned out to be a perfect space for integrating data, pieces of historical information and digitised sources. As a result such terms as “special turn” and “special history” have been coined. Digital tools bring new possibilities for the collaboration of historical geographers, make it possible to conduct analyses of a geostatistical character, and, at the same time, present new challenges related to the harmonising of collected pieces of information and their standardisation based on ontologies, taxonomies and controlled dictionaries (Linked Open Data).
Note:
Between 10 am and 12 noon in Room 305 (computer room) there will be workshops devoted to creating digital historical atlases. They will cover:
1) indexing a chosen historical source (one of the geographical indexes in synodal acts, indexing application INDXR),
2) integration and criticism of data in a database (PostgreSQL, MS Access),
3) geographical visualisation within GIS programmes (Quantum GIS, ESRI ArcGIS).
Anybody interested in the workshops please contact Dr hab. Filip Wolański (prof. UWr) from the Historical Institute of the University of Wrocław at filip.wolanski@uwr.edu.pl.
