Past, present and future of historical information science

O.W.A. Boonstra · Leen Breure · Peter K. Doorn

72 citations0/0 files stored

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Digital Humanities and Scholarship Library Science and Information Digital and Traditional Archives Management

Abstract

of the report was published for niwi-knaw Historical information science E-science, e-humanities, e-historyComputing in the sciences and humanities has developed enormously over the past decades.There is hardly a scientist or scholar remaining who does not use a computer for research purposes.There are different terms in use to indicate the fields that are particularly oriented to computing in specific disciplines.In the natural and technical sciences, the term 'e-Science' has recently become popular, where the 'e' of course stands for 'electronic'.Although there are now hundreds if not thousands of compositions of 'e' cum substantive (e-Business, e-Culture, e-Learning, e-Social Science, and even e-Love, e-Death and e-Pizza) in use, the term 'e-Humanities' is less common than 'humanities computing' and 'e-History' is usually called simply 'history and computing'.Computer science or informatics as an independent discipline dates to only about 960 It is often defined as the study of the systematic processing of information by computer systems.In many scientific fields the application of computers has been introduced as an auxiliary or subdiscipline.Information science is the discipline that deals with the processes of gathering, manipulating, storing, retrieving, classifying and transferring information.It attempts to bring together concepts and methods from various disciplines such as library science, computer science and communication science.Is it possible to discuss (historical) information science without first defining the term 'information'?Many definitions of the concept exist, but it is not our intention to give an extensive overview here.However, a few words on how 'information' is generally understood and used may be useful.All definitions agree that information is something more than data and something less than knowledge.In the Open Archival Information System (oais), information is defined as any type of knowledge that can be exchanged, and this information is always expressed (i.e., represented) by some type of data.According to McCrank, 'data are what is given in the smallest units [...] These are the raw material for building information'.He gives an admirable list of definitions ('in ascending order'), ranging from data, via information, facts, evidence, and proof, to knowledge, belief, and ultimately wisdom.(McCrank, (00)67-68).In this section, we will go into some conceptual aspects of computing in the natural and technical sciences, in the humanities and in history.Although there appears to be some ambiguity in the usage of terms, we will try to present some common definitions.2 1 The oais reference model is approved as iso Standard 7:00. Historical information science E-science and e-Social ScienceThe term E-Science is predominantly used in Great Britain, where an official and generally used definition appears to exist: 'science increasingly done through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, using very large data collections, tera-scale computing resources and high performance visualisation.'This definition by the Department of Trade and Industry is supported by the Research Council e-Science Core Programme.Many researchers and institutes, such as the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (pparc) interpret this definition widely, to include computational and data grid applications, middleware developments and essential hardware procurement.The Oxford e-Science Centre uses the same definition to describe its core activities.The World Wide Web gave us access to information on Web pages written in html anywhere on the Internet.A much more powerful infrastructure is needed to support e-Science.Besides information stored in Web pages, scientists will need easy access to expensive remote facilities, to computing resources -either as dedicated Teraflop computers or collections of cheap pcs -and to information stored in dedicated databases.The Grid is an architecture proposed to bring all these issues together and make a reality of such a vision for e-Science.Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, inventors of the Globus approach to the Grid define the Grid as an enabler for Virtual Organisations: 'An infrastructure that enables flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions and resources' (Foster and Kesselman, 999).It is important to recognize that resources in this context include computational systems and data storage and specialized experimental facilities.3 The computational grid is the next-generation computing infrastructure to support the growing need for computational based science.This involves utilization of widely distributed computing resources, storage facilities and networks owned by different organisations but used by individuals who are not necessarily members of that organisation.A descriptive way to explain computational grids is by analogy to the electric power grid.The latter provides us with instant access to power, which we use in many different ways without any thought as to the source of that power.A computational grid is expected to function in a similar manner.The end user will have no knowledge of what resource they are using to process their data and, in some cases, will not know where the data itself came from.Their only interest is in the results they can obtain by using the resource.Today computational grids are being created to provide accessible, dependable, consistent and affordable access to high performance computers, databases and even people across the world.It is anticipated that these new grids will Historical information sciencecan hardly be overestimated, it is not sure that what we are seeing is a fundamental change rather than the adaptation of what researchers have been doing before they used computers to a new environment.Nevertheless, information technology has brought changes in certain disciplines of the humanities that can be labelled revolutionary.For example in linguistics, research of language and speech has developed into a sophisticated, thoroughly technological field.In archaeology the application of geographical information systems is now rule rather than exception.Many historical dissertations are literally computer-based, that is: grounded on sources that have first been converted to databases.Text corpora have become indispensable in a lot of literary analysis.Access to research data was and is a central issue in the humanities.The digitisation of catalogues and other access tools by libraries, archives, museums and other heritage institutions was a first step to improved access to holdings.There is of course a virtually endless amount of potentially relevant material for humanities research, that currently is in analogue form and that could be digitised.Given the variety of disciplines within the humanities and the infinite number of subjects that can be (and are) studied, it is unavoidable that any digitisation programme is selective.Centres for humanities computing, which are focal points in research, teaching and services on ict and the humanities, have been created in many countries.Again, we limit ourselves to a few examples.In the uk, mention should be made of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (ahds), which consists of five specialised centres for a variety of humanities fields distributed over the country.5 The Office for Humanities Communication at King's College, London, is an umbrella organisation that fosters communication among scholars and others involved in computer-related projects and activities.It has published a series of monographs and collected papers concerned with the impact of computers in humanities scholarship and higher education.6 The Humanities Computing Unit at Oxford carries out research and develops resources in many areas of humanities computing.The unit provides support for academics in the humanities applying new technologies to their research and teaching.Among other things, the unit includes the Centre for Humanities Computing, the Oxford Text Archive, and the Humbul Humanities Hub. 7 The mission of the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (hatii) at Glasgow University is to actively encourage the use of information technology and information to improve research and teaching in the arts and the humanities.8 Recently, the Arts and Humanities Research Board has announced the establishment of an ict Methods Network.The aim of this network is to promote and disseminate the use of ict in uk Arts and Humanities research in order to enhance, develop and make more effec-5 See: http://ahds.