Universitätsbibliothek

Digital Scholarship

Linked open data (LOD) and data enrichment

LOD enrichment and georeferencing of Bern local history

Through additional links to external websites, existing digitized data and bibliographic metadata with a reference to localities in the canton of Bern receive an informational added value. The display on a map (georeferencing) also creates intuitive access to these titles and enables new uses.

This project is carried out in collaboration with the Center for Historical Collections (ZHB) of the UB Bern.

Pilot project – Bern 19^th century local history

In a pilot project, the 35 titles of the Berner Ortsgeschichten aus dem 19. Jahrhundert available from the DigiBern services were enriched with links and made accessible on a map.

In full screen mode of the map (icon on the top right), you can access the individual titles either via a book icon on the map or via the left sidebar.

Attention: Titles referring to the canton of Bern are located in the center of the canton (near Konolfingen), analogously titles about Lake Thun are placed in the center of the lake.

Pilot project

Bern 19^th century local history

On the original website of the local history on DigiBern, the 35 publications that are available digitized from the canton of Bern are only linked to the digitized version on e-rara. For more information, including the historical background, see: Berner Ortsgeschichten aus dem 19. Jahrhundert (in German).

After the revision of the DigiBern website (presumably by spring 2023), the map (pilot project) will be published on DigiBern.

In the pilot project, the link to the digital copy (full text) was supplemented by a link to the entry in the library catalog, which provides access to the original publication. In addition, the entries on the localities and districts were linked to the web services Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, ortsnamen.ch, Wikipedia, Wikicommons and Wikidata, creating a direct informational added value through the additionally accessible information and the images of the localities. With the links to Linked Open Data services (e.g. Wikidata), a simplified further utilization and greater visibility should also be achieved.

Through georeferencing (allocation of spatial information), i.e. the display of publications on an interactive map, connections become more apparent and searching, or browsing, more intuitive. This could prove helpful in the field of genealogical research, among others. For the pilot project, the free web service Google myMaps was chosen as the map software.

Main project

Bern local history from 1975-2020

The Berner Ortsgeschichten ab 1975 are local history publications on individual localities in the canton of Bern, which are listed in the Bibliography of Bernese History and specially coded there. The metadata of these more than 500 publications will be enriched with Linked Open Data (Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, ortsnamen.ch, Wikipedia, etc.) in the main project 2023 and will also be offered georeferenced on DigiBern.

For the main project, the enrichment is to be automated, i.e. either dynamically by encoding the metadata or by means of updates at specified intervals. Also, another map software has to be used, as myMaps has proven to be too limited. For example, multiple titles cannot be displayed at one location / with one pin, which meant that for the pilot project Berner Ortsgeschichten aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, the coordinates had to be slightly modified manually for each title in the case of multiple locations. Also the view of the title pages or the display and function of the links to external pages are still unsatisfactory with myMaps.

Feedback

In view of the publication of the map on DigiBern and especially for the main project in 2023, we are grateful for your feedback and for your suggestions regarding this pilot project to:

thomas.hayoz@unibe.ch and rene.frei@unibe.ch.