Search

Finding a suitable open access journal to publish scientific work is a complex task: Researchers have to navigate a constantly growing number of journals, institutional agreements with publishers, funders’ conditions and the risk of Predatory Publishers. To help with these challenges, we introduce a web-based journal recommendation system called B!SON. It is developed based on a systematic requirements analysis, built on open data, gives publisher-independent recommendations and works across domains. It suggests open access journals based on title, abstract and references provided by the user. The recommendation quality has been evaluated using a large test set of 10,000 articles. Development by two German scientific libraries ensures the longevity of the project.

This work focuses on questions of knowledge organization related to literary fiction. How can LGBTQI fictional literature become more accessible to readers and scholars? The project Queerlit Metadata Development and Searchability for LGBTQI Literary Heritage addresses this question in two ways: by the development of a thesaurus for the description of Swedish LGBTQI literature, and by building a curated bibliographical database for this material with flexible search options. Despite the community and scholarly interest in LGBTQI literature, relevant LGBTQI literature is hard to find both for readers and researchers. Subject indexing is underdeveloped for this topic, and subject headings have been historically inadequate and offensive. The paper focuses on how LGBTQI literature can be made more easily accessible through subject indexing. This will make new research possible, such as gaining overviews of the development of specific themes over time, the presence of LGBTQI literature within or outside of the literary canon or in different genres and changing ideas and perceptions concerning sexualities and gender identities. It will also accommodate user’s needs of better access to LGBTQI themed fictional literature.

Digital Methods Platform for Arts and Humanities (DiMPAH) is a three-year Erasmus+ project started in 2020 with six partner universities from Cyprus, Demark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. The project has three objectives. The first one is to create novel OERs on digital methods and associated tools for the construction of new knowledge on A&H research questions and for audience engagement in a suite of coursesacross the complementary areas of qualitative and quantitative digital research tools and methods and providing access to A&H resources for i) information access through knowledge organization systems, and ii) user engagement via Augmented Reality (AR) of cultural heritage. The OERs will be accompanied by an interactive book to ease the introduction of teachers, trainers, and learners into the digital methods, across disciplines. The DiMPAH suite, channeled by the #dariahTeach platform, will be openly available across European institutions to support current and future professionals from cultural heritage sectors as well as academia in improving competencies, connecting best practices and applying spearheading technologies, to enable collective efforts towards future solutions. The second objective is to apply and test the DiMPAH methods via case studies in three prominent European digital heritage contexts: a) digitised newspaper collections; b) built heritage environments and their digital twins; and, c) performing arts collections. Finally, the project aims to move ‘towards new stories for Europe’: the selected new methods and technologies, and cultural heritage case studies, will be deployed in learning scenarios to localise and show possible solutions and potential impact on social equity, transnational and cultural diversity, gender equality, good health and well-being.

Information and Knowledge Organisation explores the role of knowledge organisation in the digital humanities. By focusing on how information is described, represented and organised in both research and practice, this work furthers the transdisciplinary nature of digital humanities. Including contributions from Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, the volume explores the potential uses of, and challenges involved in, applying the organisation of information and knowledge in the various areas of Digital Humanities. With a particular focus on the digital worlds of cultural heritage collections, the book also includes chapters that focus on machine learning, knowledge graphs, text analysis, text annotations and network analysis. Other topics covered include: semantic technologies, conceptual schemas and data augmentation, digital scholarly editing, metadata creation, browsing, visualisation and relevance ranking. Most importantly, perhaps, the book provides a starting point for discussions about the impact of information and knowledge organisation and related tools on the methodologies used in the Digital Humanities field. Information and Knowledge Organisation is intended for use by researchers, students and professionals interested in the role information and knowledge organisation plays in the Digital Humanities. It will be essential reading for those working in library and information science, computer science and across the humanities.

ScopusID: 2-s2.0-85138835761

Invited talk at KV Seminar, Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, 4 October 2022., RJ Queerlit

While support for subject searching has been traditionally advocated for in library catalogues, notably since Cutter’s objectives for library catalogues, research shows that subject access in online library catalogues, repositories, and commercial services like bibliographic databases and discovery services has been less than optimal and fails to meet established objectives of bibliographic systems. Although the services try to match users’ expectations by implementing Google-like single search box interfaces, it seems that efficient mechanisms such as ranking algorithms used by Google, efficient exploitation of intellectual effort that has been invested into subject indexing, or even quality-controlled subject indexing per se, are still missing from these services, leading to retrieval failures. Specific problems in indexing humanities research have offered concerns for research over several decades. As part of the general development of digital scholarship, disciplines and research areas in the humanities have developed new structures both within themselves and in relation to other disciplines, both within and outside the humanities. In the currently growing interdisciplinary field of digital humanities, it is important to provide quality subject access to a vast variety of heterogeneous information objects in digital services. This includes both primary sources and secondary ones. Recent studies of subject access in selected discovery systems, a university repository and Scopus will be used to demonstrate the raised issues, complemented by a qualitative study of researchers in the humanities and their ways of subject searching.

RJ Queerlit project

The Digital Humanities Master’s Programme at Linnaeus University started enrolling students in the autumn of 2020. It is implemented as a collaboration between two faculties, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and Faculty of Technology. The two-year programme is structured to allow a general one-year introduction to the field and in the second year the students choose their specialization. One-year programme is also available. The programme relies heavily on invited talks and collaboration with external sectors for theses. topics and research-based teaching. The talk will report on the structure and challenges of running such an interdisciplinary programme across departments and delivering it to a highly heterogeneous student group.

Information and Knowledge Organisation in Digital Humanities: Global Perspectives (DCMI), explores the potential uses of, and challenges involved in, applying the organisation of information and knowledge in the various areas of Digital Humanities. By focussing on how information is described, represented, and organised in both research and practice, this work furthers the transdisciplinary nature of digital humanities. Most importantly, perhaps, the book provides a starting point for discussions about the impact of information and knowledge organisation and related tools on the methodologies used in the Digital Humanities field. The book is by and large an international volume, as its 41 authors are affiliated with universities and related organisations in 16 countries on 4 continents. Since several chapters are authored by practitioners, with real world examples, practitioners will also appreciate the relevance of this work, as well as offer inspirations for new projects and initiatives. Prof. Golub and Dr. Liu will briefly provide an overview of the book and reflections on its goals and production. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion., ASIS&T European Chapter event.

The interdisciplinary field known as digital humanities (DH) is represented in various forms in the teaching and research practiced in iSchools. Building on the work of an iSchools organization committee charged with exploring digital humanities curricula, we present findings from a series of related studies exploring aspects of DH teaching, education, and research in iSchools, often in collaboration with other units and disciplines. Through a survey of iSchool programs and an online DH course registry, we investigate the various education models for DH training found in iSchools, followed by a detailed look at DH courses and curricula, explored through analysis of course syllabi and course descriptions. We take a brief look at collaborative disciplines with which iSchools cooperate on DH research projects or in offering DH education. Next, we explore DH careers through an analysis of relevant job advertisements. Finally, we offer some observations about the management and administrative challenges and opportunities related to offering a new iSchool DH program. Our results provide a snapshot of the current state of digital humanities in iSchools which may usefully inform the design and evolution of new DH programs, degrees, and related initiatives.

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide modern local governments with potential use cases for their open data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making. The concrete context was that of the Växjö municipality located in southeastern Sweden. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology was two-fold: 1) a survey of potential end users (n=151) from a local university; and, 2) analysis of survey results using a theoretical model regarding local strategies for implementing open government data. Findings: Most datasets predicted to be useful were on: sustainability and environment; preschool and school; municipality and politics. The use context given is primarily research and development, informing policies and decision making; but also education, informing personal choices, informing citizens and creating services based on open data. Not the least, the need for educating target user groups on data literacy emerged. A tentative pattern comprising a technical perspective on open data and a social perspective on open government was identified. Research limitations: In line with available funding, the nature of the study was exploratory and implemented as an anonymous web-based survey of employees and students at the local university. Further research involving (qualitative) surveys with all stakeholders would allow for creating a more complete picture of the matter. Practical implications: The study determines potential use cases and use contexts for open government data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making. Originality/value: Modern local governments, and especially in Sweden, are faced with a challenge of how to make their data open, how to learn about which types of data will be most relevant for their end users and what will be different societal purposes. The paper contributes to knowledge that modern local governments can resort to when it comes to attitudes of local citizens to open gove

This paper is a case study of research publication practices at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University, a young, mid-sized university in the south-east of Sweden. Research output was measured from publications in the local institutional repository following the guidelines of local research policy as defined in university documentation. The data collection comprised 3,316 metadata records of publications self-registered by authors affiliated with the faculty during the period of 2010–2018. A statistical analysis of research output was conducted, focusing on preferred publication types, disciplinary specificity, level of co-authorship, and the language of the publication as registered in the local repository. The analysis focused on two main research questions: 1) how do the local research practices stand in relation to traditional publication patterns in the humanities? 2) how do the observed publication patterns relate to local university policy on publication and research evaluation? The empirical results suggest a limited correlation between publication practices and research incentives from university management, a finding that is corroborated by previous research on the scholarly character of the humanities and university policies. Overall, traditional humanities publication patterns were largely maintained throughout the period under investigation.

Digital research outputs in the form of websites, databases and interactive visualisation tools pose a challenge for long-term maintenance and reusability. A central problem for libraries and research institutions working in the digital humanities is that digital projects require constant maintenance: they are not static artefacts that can be preserved but living software environments that must be maintained. In this chapter, we argue in favour of creating semantically rich research data that can be separated from the software used to create and view it. We outline how we put this approach into practice, both within the scope of an individual research project and at scale, as libraries take on new responsibilities in managing digital research outputs. We hope to offer insights into the kind of artefacts that can be preserved in principle and the technical solutions with which reusability of research data can be achieved in order to make long-term preservation of digital research outputs feasible.

The chapter introduces the discipline of knowledge organisation (KO) and its relevance to scholars and practitioners in the field of digital humanities (DH). It sets the stage for the volume's 12 contributed chapters, which present case studies at the intersection of the two research areas. The contributions develop themes that highlight the specific opportunities and challenges of bringing these fields together. The themes of the chapters reflect the preeminent research topics of KO for DH: metadata in cultural heritage collections, which includes topics like conceptual models; data aggregation and metadata enrichment. Information management of textual collections, lexical resources and research outputs provide another important focus. Interfaces to cultural heritage collections and automated techniques are also addressed. Several chapters are directly driven by humanities research questions: one example is the ResearchSpace project, which demonstrates the ineffectiveness of data-based information organisation for historians. Another is the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and semantic annotation to explore a classical text. Finally, the chapter calls for transdisciplinary research collaborations that will bridge the gap within and at the intersections of KO and DH.

In the face of the ever-increasing document volume, libraries around the globe are more and more exploring (semi-) automated approaches to subject indexing. This helps sustain bibliographic objectives, enrich metadata, and establish more connections across documents from various collections, effectively leading to improved information retrieval and access. However, generally accepted automated approaches that are functional in operative systems are lacking. This article aims to provide an overview of basic principles used for automated subject indexing, major approaches in relation to their possible application in actual library systems, existing working examples, as well as related challenges calling for further research.

In this talk Koraljka Golub introduced basic principles of automating the process of subject classification and indexing, with a focus on text. Different approaches such as text categorization, document clustering and document classification were presented, compared for purposes of application, with most basic principles of automation introduced without going into advanced computational detail. Complexities of evaluation were also addressed. The talk was largely based on the following open access encyclopedia article: Golub, Koraljka. 2019. "Automatic subject indexing of text". Knowledge Organization 46, no. 2: 104-121. Also available in ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization, eds. Birger Hjørland and Claudio Gnoli, http://www.isko.org/cyclo/automatic. The class was delivered via Zoom and was attended by 88 participants from 33 countries. Presentation slides are available to all participants via the KO-ED forum on the ISKO UK website.

Introduction. This exploratory study aims to map the premises of developing interoperability of archival holdings and the understanding of how interoperability is understood from an operational perspective at archival institutions. The study is based on a comparative survey of the views of archivists from Croatian, Finnish and Swedish archives on the perceived needs, barriers and preferences regarding online access and interoperability of a their metadata and holdings. Method. A web survey comprising 35 multiple-choice and open-ended questions focusing on current state and plans regarding online access and interoperability of the holdings and metadata of the institutions was sent out to archives in Croatia, Finland and Sweden in autumn 2015. Analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out on the data, which related to 45 individual archives. Quantitative analysis employed the statistical package SPSS, while the qualitative analysis referred to content analysis of open questions by one of the researchers. Results. While the respondents are unanimous in their opinion that interoperability is important for their institutions and useful for their users, the current level of interoperability and the online access to holdings provided by the responding institutions in discrepancy with this opinion. The lack of resources and expertise could be traced back to the shortage of interest at strategic and managerial level. Conclusion. The findings suggest that there are several obstacles in the way to providing improved interoperability and online access to archival holdings and metadata. At the same time, there is a lack of conceptual agency that would try to redefine the problem and try to choose appropriate methods, develop meanings and relations between the concept of interoperability and the principles of archival work., Published as: Faletar Tanacković, S, Golub, K & Huvila, I (2017). The meaning of interoperability and its implications for archival institutions: challenges and opportunities in Croatia, Finland and Sweden. Information Research, 22(1), CoLIS paper 1653. Retrieved from http://InformationR.net/ir/22-1/colis/colis1653.html (Archived by WebCite¯ at http://www.webcitation.org/6oVlokz6i).

The article offers a state-of-the-art overview of a number of Digital Humanities (DH) initiatives that have emerged in Sweden over the past decade. We identify two major developments that seem to be taking place within DH, with a specific focus on the infrastructural aspects of the development: (1) a strive to open up and broaden the research output and (2) multi-disciplinary collaboration and its effects. The two major components accentuate the new infrastructural patterns that are developing and the challenges these infer on universities. While current research is at large multi-disciplinary, developing infrastructures also enable the move towards post-disciplinarity, bringing the universities closer to the surrounding society. At five universities in Sweden, individual-sited infrastructures supporting DH research have been built today. They are complemented by national and international infrastructures, thus supporting developments and tackling some of the major challenges. In the article, the relations between individual disciplines, the question of multi- and post-disciplinarity, and the field of Digital Humanities are discussed, while stressing the factors necessary - sine qua non - for a fruitful development of the scholarly infrastructures.

Invited talk