A Supra-institutional Infrastrucutre for Image Processing in the Humanities?

Infrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities‘? 135
A Supra-institutional Infrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities?
Espen S. Ore
Culture in the widest sense, and artifacts, cultural produce, are the objects of study
in the humanities. Hence, the ability to process, store and retrieve images and other nonalpha-
numerical data types, e.g. sound, are of high importance for humanities studies
in general. The same objects may also be studied for different purposes in the different
humanities disciplines and specialities. A page from an illuminated medieval MS may for
instance be studied for its textual content by linguists, Iiterature scholars and historians.
The same page may be studied for its picture content by art historians and historians. The
writing is in itself the study object of paleographers, and paleography is a tool for many of
the other above mentioned disciplines. Hence, once we start discussing how the object is
viewed and treated within the various sectors of the humanities, we can probably no Ionger
consider „the humanities“ a unified category. This means that it is difficult to conceive of
„image processing in the humanities“ . It is even difficult to view image processing within
the limited area of history studies as a single field of interest (Jaritz 1991).
If we Iook at computer methods for dealing with humanist material, we will see that
the diversity of approaches and technological methods corresponds to the many ways in
which the humanist scholars „set“ images as objects of study. In short, a complete suprainstitutional
service centre for computerized image processing would have to possess competence
within a wide range of humanist disciplines as weil as competence of the appropriate
computer methods to fulfil the needs of the humanists.
Under these circumstances, is it possible to ima.gine a supra-institutional organization
on e.g. a national scale that could support computerized work with images in the humanities?
If such an organization is deemed useful, which services should it offer? These
questions ma.y be turned around: Given the services that can be offered by a national organization,
would such an institution be of value to the humanities? Computerized image
processing is after all just a special case of humanities computing in general. In Norwa.y
there has existed a national institution for huma.nities computing since 1972. Image
processing software and hardware is now on the Ievel where text processing was in 1985
87. Thus, experience from the work both within this institution and at the Norwegian
universities gives us a. practical basis that may assist in answering these questions.
The Norwegian Computing Centre for the Humanities 1972 – 1992
In 1972 it was decided by the Norwegia.n Research Council for the Humanities (NRCH)
to establish (for a. 5 year period) the Norwegia.n Computing Centre for the Humanities
(NCCH) loca.ted a.t the University of Bergen. The aim of NCCH, somewhat simplified,
was to stimula.te researchers in the huma.nities into using computers in their work and to
help develop computer competence a.t the local institutions so that they could take over
the responsibility for this work from NRCH. In 1976 NRCH decided to prolong NCCH
until 1980, and in 1978 it was decided that NCCH should be a permanent institution and
its aims were changed accordingly. In 1991 NCCH was transferred from NRCH to the
University of Bergen although NRCH will still provide part of the funding, demanding
136 Espen S. Ore
that NCCH spend a certain amount of its resources on institutions such as museums that
do not have the Ievel of computer resources found at the four Norwegian universities.
Looking back over the last 20 years one finds that the original aim of NCCH has more
or less been attained. During the first years of its existence a consultant was placed at
each of the Norwegian universities while the rest of the NCCH staff worked at the Bergen
office which had its own computing facilities and also access to the central computing
facilities at the University of Bergen. The consultants at the universities were eventually
transferred organisationally (and economically) to the Jocal universities, and eventually
three of them provided the basis for Jocal departments for humanities computing.1 The
departments at the universities of Oslo and Bergen give courses that may be included in
an academic degree. It thus seems that the universities have the necessary infrastructure
to support computing in the humanities. On the other hand NRCH recognizes that there
are institutions, particularly museums, that do not have the staff and economic resources
to become self supplied in IT2•
During its first years NCCH’s work was aimed at developing computer literacy within
the humanities in Norway. This was done through seminars, workshops, etc. A system of
visiting scholars was later established. These scholars stayed at NCCH for periods up to
two years, working on specific projects. At the same time, staff from NCCH collaborated
with other projects at the local universities. The idea was that computer competence
from NCCH would be spread to the local milieus, while NCCH would gain better insight
in the computational needs of the various humanities disciplines. Some of the projects
wbere NCCH collaborated with humanities scholars aimed at developing software to solve
a given problern or for use in a specific humanities discipline. Mostly, these programs bad
a brief lifespan, either because the programs at that time tended to be rather hardware
dependent and/or because commercial software appeared that answered the same needs
as the software developed at NCCH. On the other band there were some special problems
that would probably never be solved by commercial software (e.g. alphabetic sorting of
transcribed Ti betan), and here special ad hoc programs certainly bave played an important
part.
Computing in tbe bumanities in Norway
Already tbe very beginning of computing in the humanities in Norway generated
discussion on the principles on which it should be based, wbat possible benefits it could bave
for tbe bumanities, wbat tbreats it might pose etc. This is not surprising since technology
and methods from what was then generally considered a spinoff from mathematics was
now entering the culture based area of the humanities.
1 The department for humanities computing at the University of Oslo has later been merged
with the departments for linguistics and philosophy due to a generat organizational resbuHle at
that university.
2 In 1983 there were about 475 registered museums in Norway. In an enquete that year 223
museums reported that they bad an accumulated workforce of ca. 3000 persons, less than half of
whom on an all year basis. (Udjus 1985) In 1991 a survey showed that 520 Norwegian museums
employed 1200 person full-time, or 2.3 full-time persans pro museum. (0stby 1991)
lnfrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities? 137
From 1973 to 1991 NCCH has published what was originally a newsletter and then
expanded into a journal – Humanistiske Data (HD). Reading through the volumes one
finds in the no. 1, 1974 issue an article by a historian (Johansen 1974) discussing the
possible consequences computer related activities might have for the disciplines of the
humanities. In bis article Jobansen gives a sharp warning against building data archives
that are not related to a given research problem. If this warning is not heeded, Jobansen
weites, one will risk that the established data sets may determine what will be used for
research rather than that the needs of research define what data should be stored. In
the foUowing issue of HD Jobansen is answered by another historian (Fonnes 1974) who,
although be agrees with Jobansen in principle, finds that data in a machine-readable form
are a resource and represent an investment in both labour and money that other researchers
than the original data collector should be able to use. This, Fonnes writes, means that the
computerized data must be as true as possible to the original, i.e. the entire information
content of the original data set must be kept in the computerized version. Today one
takes a more pragmatic view: Digitized data means available data, so Iet us digitize the
humanities archives now, and worry later about whether having computerized data sets is
A Good Thing (see below).
The 1/74 issue of HD also contains a status report on computing in the humanities in
Norway for 1973 (HDa 1974), information on available computer programs for computing
in the humanities(HDb 1974) and information on· available machine-readable data in Norway(
HDc 1974). These three articles combined give a picture of humanities computing in
Norway which at that time was loosely divided into three main categories:
• Data entry for specific research projects.
• Data entry aimed at building archives for general researcb purposes.
• Software development.
Software and data archives tended to be field specific but not overly so. History
projects used data which were to a certain degree already structured/formalized such as
cburch registers and census papers, while the philologists based their research on free text.
Still, the computer tools of choice for both groups (and for musicologists) were those that
could be used to generate concordances, word frequency lists and other kinds of Jists and
indices. Data were stored on punch cards, paper tape and magnetic tape. They were
thus not immediately available to the scholars at their own desks, and this may be one of
the reasons why many of the archive projects either died completely or went into a long
slumber.
At all the universities considerable effort was devoted to programs that could be used
in text input and editing. Also listed as research tools were programs for communicating
with photo typesetters. In general a Iot of work was invested in special computer programs
for special hardware that could do a small part of what we expect of any integrated business
package today, the generation of concordances excepted. And this last is important:
humanists may have needs for computer tools that they at a given time and place consider
particular to the humanities. A natural response from people involved in humanities
computing if the need were for software would be – and has been – to write special
programs. But if or when those humanists‘ needs coincide with commercial interests, stan138
Espen S. Ore
dard off-the-shelf hardware and software will become available. In image processing, to
foreshadow a later argument, we can now buy photo retouching software which makes use
of algorithms that a few years ago could only be found in programs developed in special
image processing laboratories (Ore E.S. 1992b). We can thank the computer revolution in
the graphics industries for this. On the other band, there has never been a !arge market
for concordance programs in commercial business. Therefore the programs that have been
developed within a humanities context represent laudable efforts whether they are sold
commercially (e.g. WordCruncher) or are distributed as freeware (e.g. TACT).
Norwegian museum documentation projects
The Association of Norwegian Museums of Art and Social History {ANMASH) organizes
a !arge number of Norwegian must>ums with matt>rial relevant to the humanities. As
mentioned above many of these museums are quite small. In order to support its member
museums ANMASH has developed documentation standards. The standards have been
implemented in database systems for personal computers by NCCH. A first version of the
standards and their implementations were made available in 1985 aod the Standards were
closely linked to the physical database implementation. {0stby 1985) One reason for this
link between standard and implementation was that ANMASH itself has no power to enforce
its standards: by affering an already developed database system to museums that
did not have the resources to have their own computing departments, ANMASH ensured
that a !arge number of museums would accept the standard registration form.
In 1991 NCCH was commissioned by ANMASH to enhance the e:xisting standards.
This has led to a complete reworking of the field library which among other things now
allows multimedia data types. The field library will also be independeot of impler.1entatioo.
ANMASH wishes to be able to offer its members ready-tcruse implementatioos under MSDOS,
Windows, and Macintosh, but any implementation of the field library or a subset
thereof will generally be acceptable as complying with the standards. For )arge museums
with their own computing expertise this may be an important factor in deciding whether
they will accept the new standard or not.
1992: A national documentation project in tbe bumanities
In 1990 a feasibility study was undertaken at the U niversity of Oslo in order to estimate
the resources needed to computerize the archives of the various departments in the Faculty
of Arts. The study only evaluated the needs of those departments that were considered
archive holders, e.g. the Department of Lexicography and the University Museum of
National Antiquities which, among other things, is responsible for the Viking ships found
in eastern Norway and the artifacts found with them. After the completion of the pilot
study it was discovered that quite a few other departments also held archives which they
wanted to computerize, such as the slide collection of tbe Department of Art History or the
slide collection of Herculanean papyri at the Department of Classics (Kleve, Ore, Jensen
1987). However, the work needed to computerize the archives of just the first selected
departments was estimated at more tban 600 man years. (Ore, C.-E. 1991)
On the basis of the feasibility study it was decided to start work on the complete
project. In 1991 it outgrew its origins as a project local to the University of Oslo. It is now
a national documentation project for the humanities with all four universities participating.
In[rastructure for Image Processing in the Humanitiesl 139
It is funded partly by the government, partly by the universities. Some of the registration
work now being done, e.g. in lexicography, is in fact a continuation, or a revival of the
archives reported in Humanistiske Data in 1974. The big difference between then and now
is the arrival of the personal computer and user friendly commercially available software.
So far the documentation project does not aim at establishing a !arge unified database,
although linking of the registered data in interdisciplinary hypermedia systems is a long
term aim. The project has a steering group with representatives from the faculties of art
at the Norwegian universities and an administrative and technical management situated at
the University of Oslo. There are no centralized decisions taken on which data should be
input and in what form, although the cooperation between the universities ideally insures
that the same data are not entered twice. The main point is to computerize the data in
a form that is of use to the departments responsible for the archives and compatible with
the computer systems already in use there. Norwegian universities computing is already
fairly standardized on Intel-based systems, Macintoshes and Unix computers that are all
more or less networked together. When a reasonable amount of data is entered the next
step in the documentation project will be to develop presentation and interchange formats.
This will include linking the data from the various specialist departments: The terms in
the lexicographic database may be linked with the dialectological databases and with GIS
(Geographical Information Systems) bases showing where in Norway a specific term is used
for e.g. a piece of fishing gear. In other words, this kind of interconnected data ideally in a
hypermedia system opens the way for an interdisciplinary approach towards the humanities
archives. The further development of specialized tools for the utilisation of the data will
still be the concern of the individual departments concerned. For instance the collection
of Greek and Roman coins in the Collection of Coins & Medals is now being registered
tagether with digital images of the coins. These images will be generally available, but the
tools needed for e.g. a comparison of coins are not to be supplied by the documentation
project. Similarly, there are plans for computerizing the Norwegian collections of runic
inscriptions both as transcripts and as images of the inscriptions themselves. For epigraphic
and paleographic studies it will be of interest to develop computer tools for the analysis of
the images but this too is outside of the immediate range of the documentation project.
140
What have we learned?
Espen S. Ore
After 20 years of experience in humanities computing, some of the lessons we have
learned from the work at NCCH and from humanities computing in Norway in general are:
• Development and maintenance of software for general use is costly. lf possible, use
commercially available software.
• Ad hoc programming for specific project purposes is often worthwhile.
• On a national or international scale, different hardware and software platforms are
used (and will be used) in the humanities. Thus, all systems planning should be as
platform independent as possible.
• Humanists will use simple hardware and software located on their desktops rather than
advanced equipment located somewhere else. (As a corollary: transparent networking
and data exchange becomes more and more important.)
• The ernerging use of hypermedia systems is an incentive towards interdisciplinary
work.3
3 A good example of a bypermedia system with interdisciplioary aspects is the Perseus project
at Harvard (Crane G. 1991 aod Mylonas E. 1991).
lnfrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities? l·H
Conclusions
Rather than asupra-institutional infrastructure for image processing in the humanities
realized as a separate institution I see a need for an infrastructure in the form of interinstitutional
cooperation. The expertise has to be where the scholars are, not the other
way round. On the other hand humanities computing is interdisciplinary by nature so
all institutions of any size should have an infrastructure for humanities computing that
could be organized as a humanities computing centre. Such centres should be part of an
international network for humanities computing. This could preferably take place within
the scope of organizations such as ACH or ALLC. They should also, nationally. provide
assistance to institutions that cannot afford their own humanities computing services.
Image processing would be an integral and important part of this.
Today, image databases (and other multimedia databases) depend on descriptive fields
for retrieval. In the future it is possible that there will be software that can search for
image content using pattern matehing algorithms derived from AI-research and military
technology. (Radar based homing missiles spring to mind here.) But for the time being,
verbal descriptions and classification codes will be the main retrieval aids together with
visual browsing of the images. Given the different approaches to the images in the various
sectors of the humanities, it is difficult to imagine a completely standardized classification
scheme (Jaritz 1991). Still, some Standards for cla.ssification are better than none at all,
so standardization of classification and verbal de5criptions should form an important part
of inter-institutional collaboration both nationally and internationally.
The computer technology and its use are rapidly changing. This has been true for
the last twenty years, and most Iikely it will be true for the next twenty years. Therefore,
little would be gained by trying to establish standardized software and hardware platforms
for image processing in the humanities on a supra-institutional level (Roper 1991).
More important would be the development of interchange formats and extended use of the
international computer networks.
142 Espen S. Ore
Bibliography
Crane, G. (1991), „Composing Culture: The Authority of an Electronic Text“ , Current
Anthropology, Vol. 32, No. 3, 1991, pp. 293-302
Fonnes, I. ( 1974), „EDB som faktor i kunnskapsproduksjonen“ (EDP as a factor in
the production of knowledge), Humanistiske Data, No 2 1974, pp. 7-8
HDa unsigned article (1974), „EDB-virksomheten i de humanistiske fag ved vä.re universiteter“
(Application of EDP in our universities}, Humanistiske Data, No. 1 1974, pp.
4-13
HDb unsigned article (1974), „Oversikt over maskinprogram i Norge til bruk i humanistisk
forskning“ (Overview of computer programs [available] in Norway for use in .the
humanities), Humanistiske Data, No. 1 1974, pp. 14-17
HDc unsigned ( 1 974), „Data i maskinleselig form“ (Machine readable data), Humanistiske
Da ta, No. 1 1974, pp. 18-24
Jaritz, G. (1991), „Medieval Image Databases: Aspects of Cooperation and Exchange“
, Literary and Lingusi tic Computing, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1991, pp. 15-19
Johansen, A. B. (1974), „EDB som faktor i kunnskapsproduksjonen“ (EDP as a factor
in the production of knowledge), Humanistiske Data, No. 1 1974, pp. 1-3
Kleve,K. , Ore, E.S. and Jensen, R. ( 1987), „Literalogy: On the Use of Computer
Graphics and Photography in Papyrology“, Symbolae Osloensis, Vol. LXII, 1987, pp.
109-129
Mylonas, E. ( 1 991), „The Perseus Project: Ancient Greece in Texts, Maps and Images“,
Proceedings from the Conference: Electronic Books – Multimedia Reference Works,
Bergen 1991, pp. 173-187
Ore, C.-E. ( 1991), Dokumentasjonsprosjektet ved Det historisk- filosofiske fakultet,
Universitetet i Oslo (The Documentation Project at the Faculty of Arts, the University of
Oslo), Oslo 1991
Ore, E. S. (1992a}, „Project Litera: Computer Aids in Restoring Partly Preserved
Letters in Papyri“, paper given at the ALLC/ ACH conference in Siegen June 1990, to be
published in Research in Humanities computing, 1992
Ore, E. S. (1992b), „Bilder og edb 1991“ (Images and Edp 1991), Proceedings from
the Second Norwegian Conference on Photo-preservation 1991, 1992, in print
Roper, J. G. (1991) „The New Humanities Workstation“, Literary and Linguistic
Computing, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1991, pp. 131-133
Udjus, I. (1985), „Fakta om de norske museene“ (Facts about the Norwegian museums),
Musumsnytt, Vol. 34, No. 3 4, 1985, pp. 100-102
0stby, J. B. ( 1985), Edb-metoder for kunst og kulturhistoriske museer (Edp-methods
for museums of art and social history), Report No. 38 from NCCH, 1985
0stby, J. B. (1991) Working paper presented at a seminar on computerized museum
documentation at Gran, Norway, 18 Sept. 1991. Unpublished.
Halbgraue Reihe
zur Historischen Fachinformatik
Herausgegeben von
Manfred Thaller
Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte
Serie A: Historische Quellenkunden
Band 14
Erscheint gleichzeitig als:
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
26
Manfred Thaller (Ed.)
Images and Manuscripts
in Historical Computing
Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte
In Kommission bei
SCRIPTA MERCATURAE VERLAG
St. Katharinen, 1992
© Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, Göttingen 1992
Printed in Cermany
Druck: Konrad Pachnicke, Göttingen
Umschlaggestaltung: Basta Werbeagentur, Göttingen
ISBN: 3-928134-53-1
Table of Contents
lntroduction
Manfred Tb aller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. Basic Definitions
Image Processing and the (Art) Historical Discipline
.Jörgen van den Berg, Hans Brandhorst and Peter van Huisstede ……………. , .. 5
II. Methodological Opinions
The Processing of Manuscripts
Manfred Tballer …….. . ……….. . . . … …. . . .. . . . ……………… . . .. …… 41
Pietonal Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative
Frank Colson and Wendy Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . .. … . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 73
The Open System Approach to Pictorial Information Systems
Wendy Hall and Frank Colson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . …….. . . . . . . .. . . . 87
111. Projects and Case Studies
Tbe Digital Processing of Images in Archives and Libraries
Pedro Gonzi.lez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
High Resolution Images
Anthony Hamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
A Supra-institutional Infrastructure for Image Processing in the Humanities?
Espen S. Ore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Describing the Indescribable
Gerhard Jaritz and Barbara Schub . . . . . …. . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . 143
Full Text / Image DBMSs
Robert Rowland . . . . . .. . …. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
lntrosluctjon
lntroduction
Manfred Thaller
This book is the product of a workshop held at the International University Institute
in Firenze on November 151h, 1991. The intention of that workshop has been to bring
tagether people from as ma.ny different approaches to „ima.ge processing“ as possible.
The reason for this „collecting“ approach to the subject was a feeling, tha.t wbile image
processing in many ways has been the „hattest“ topic in Huma.nities computing 1n recent
years, it may be the least weil defined. It seems also much barder to say in this area., wbat
is specifically important to historia.ns, tha.n to other people. In that situation it was feit,
that a foruin would be helpful, which could sort out what of the various approaches can
be useful in historical resea.rch.
To solve this task, the present volume has been produced: in ma.ny ways, it reflects
the discussions which actually have been going on less, than the two compa.nion volumes
on the workshops at Glasgow a.nd TromS0 do. This is intentional. On the one band,
the pa.rticipa.nts at the workshop in Firenze did strongly feel the need to have projects
represented in the volume, which were not actually present at the workshop. On the other,
the discussions for quite some time were engaged in cla.rifying what the metbodological
issues were. That is: what a.ctua.lly a.re the topics for schola.rly discussion beyond the
description of individual projects, when it comes to the processing of images in historical
resea.rch?
The situation in the a.rea is made difficult, because some of the underlying a.ssumptions
are connected with vigoraus research groups, who use fora of schola.rly debate, which are
only slightly overlapping; so, what is ta.citly a.ssumed to hold true in one group of research
projects may be considered so obviously wrang in a.nother one, that it sca.rcely deserves
explicit refutation.
We hope, that we have been succes:.ful in bringing some of these hidden diJferences
in opinion out into the open. We consider this extremely importa.nt, because only that
cla.rification allows for a fair evaluation of projects which may have sta.rted from different
sets of a.ssumption. So importa.nt, indeed, that we would like to catalogue here some of the
basic differences of opinion which exist between image processing projects. Tbe reader will
rediscover them in many of the contributions; as editor I think however, that suma.rizing
tbem at tbe beginning may make the contributions- which, of course, have been striving
for impartiality – more easily rccognizable as parts of one coherent debate.
Three basic differences in opinion seem to exist today:
(1) Is ima.ge processing a genuine and independent field of Computer ba.sed resea.rcb in
the Humanities, or is it an auxiliary tool“? Many projects a.ssume tacitly – a.nd some do so
quite outspokenly- that imag􀃣 on the computer act as illustrations to more conventional
applications. To retrieval systems, as illustrations in catalogues and the like. Projects of
this type tend to point out, that with currently easily available equipment a.nd currently
clearly understood data processing technologies, the analysis of images, which can quite
easily be ha.ndled as illustrations today, is still costly and of uncertain promise. Wb ich is the
rea.son why they a.ssume, that such analytical approaches, if at all, should be undertaken
2 Introductjon
as side effects of projects only, which focus upon the relatively simple administration of
images. Their opponents think, in a nutshell, that while experiments may be needed, their
overalJ outcome is so promising, that even the more simple techniques of today should be
implemented only, if they can later be made useful for the advanced techniques now only
partially feasible.
(2) Connected to this is another conflict, which might be the most constant one
in Humanities data processing during the last decades, is particularly decisive, however,
when it comes to image processing . Shall we concentrate on Ievels of sopbistication, which
are available for many on today’s equipment or shall we try to make use of the most
sophisticated tools today, trusting that they will become available to an increa.singly !arge
number of projects in the future? This specific battle has been fought since the earliest
years of Humanities computing, and this editor has found bimself on both sides at different
stages. A „right􀅁 answer does not exist: the debate in image processing is probably one
of the best occassions to understand mutually, that both positions are full of merit. It is
pointless to take permanently restrictions into consideration, which obviously will cease to
exist a few years from now. It discredits all of us, if computing in history always promises
results only on next years equipment and does not deliver here and now. Maybe, that is
indeed one of the more important tasks of the Association for History and Computing:
to provide a link between both worlds, Jending vision to those of us burdened down by
the next funding deadline and disciplining the loftier projects by the question of when
sometbing will be affordable for all of us.
(3) The third major underlying difference is inherently connected to the previous ones.
An image as such is beautiful, but not very useful, before it is connected to a description.
Shall such descriptions be arbitrary, formulated in the traditionally clouded langnage of
a historian, perfectly unsuitable for any sophisticated technique of retrieval, maybe not
even unambigously understandable to a fellow historian? Or shall they follow a predefined
catalogue of narrow criteria, using a carefully controlled vocabulary, for both of which it is
somewbat unclear how they will remain relevant for future research questions which have
not been asked so far? – All the contributors to this volume have been much to polite to
pbrase their opinions in this way: scarcely any of them does not have a strong one with
regard to this problem.
More questions than answers. „Image processing“, whether applied to images proper
or to digitalized manuscripts, seems indeed to be an area, where many methodological
questions remain open. Besides that, interestingly, it seems to be one of the most consequential
ones: a project like the digitalization of the Archivo General de Indias will
continue to influence the conditions of historical work for decades in the next century.
There are not only many open questions, it is worthwhile and neccessary to discuss them.
While everybody seems to have encountered image processing in one form or the
other already, precise knowledge about it seems to be relatively scarce. The volume starts,
therefore, with a general introduction into the field by· J. v.d. Berg, H. Brandhorst and
P. v. Huisstede. While most of the following contributions have been written to be as self
supporting as possible, this introduction attempts to give all readers, particularly those
lntroductjon 3
with only a vague notion of the techniques coucerned, a common ground upon which the
more specialized discussions may build.
The contributions that follow have been written to introduce specific areas, where
handling of images is useful and can be integrated into a !arger context. All authors have
been asked in this part to clearly state their own opinion, to produce clearcut statements
about their methodological position in the discussions described above. Originally, four
contributions were planned: the first one, discussing whether the more advanced techniques
of image processing can change the way in which images are analysed and handled by art historians, could unfortunately not be included in this volume due to printing deadlines:
we hope to present it as part of follow up volumes or in one of the next issues of History
and Computing.
The paper of M. Thaller argues that scanning and presenting corpora of manuscripts
on a work station can (a) save the originals, (b) iutroduce new methods for palaeographic
training into university teaching, (c) provide tools for reading damaged manuscripts, the
comparison of band writing and general palaeographic studies. He further proposes to
build upon that a new understanding of editorial work. A fairly long tr.chnical discussion
of the mechanisms needed to link images and transcriptions of manuscripts in a wider
context follows. ·
F. Colson and W. Hall discuss the role of images in teaching systems in university
education. They do so by a detailed description of the mechanism by which images are
integrated into Microcosm I HiDES teaching packages. Their considerations include the
treatment of moving images; furthermore tbey enquire about relationships between image
and text in typical stages in the dialogue between a teaching package and a user.
W. Hall and F. Colson argue in the final contribution to thill part the general case
of open systems, exemplifying their argument with a discussion of the various degrees in
which control about the choices a user has is ascertained in the ways in which navigation is
supported in a hyper-text oriented system containing images. In a outshell the difference
between „open“ and closed systems can be understood as the following: in an „open
system“ the user can dynamically develop further the behaviour of an image-based or
image-related system. On the contrary in static „editions“ the editor has absolute control,
the user none.
Following these general description of approaches, in the third part, several international
projects are presented, which describe in detail the decisions taken in implementing
„real“ image processing based applications, some of them of almost frigthening magnitude.
The contributors of this part were asked to provide a different kind of introduction to the
subject than those to the previous two: all of them should discuss a relatively small topic,
which, however, should be discussed with much greater detail than the relatively broad
overviews of the first two parts.
All the contributions growing out of the workshop came from projects, which had
among their aims the immediate applicability of the tools developed within the next 12-
24 months. As a result they are focusing on corpora not much beyond 20.000 (color) and
100.000 (blw) images, which are supposed to be stored in resolutions manageable within
:::; 5MB I image (color) and :::; 0.5 MB I image (blw). The participants of the workshop
feit strongly, that this view should be augmented by a description of the rationale behind
4 lntroductjon
the creation of a !arge scale projt’Ct for the systematic conversion of a complete archive.
The resulting paper, by P. Gonza!ez, describes the considerations which Iead to the design
of the .’\rchivo General de Indias projt’Ct and the experiences gained du ring the completed
stages. That description is enhanced by a discussion of the stratrgies selected to make the
raw bitmaps accessible via suitable descriptions I transcriptions I keywords. A critical
appraisal, which decisions would be made dilferently after the developments in hardware
tecbnology in recent years, augments the value of the description.
The participants of the workshop feit furthermore strongly, that their view described
above sbould be augmented by a description of the techniques used for the handling of
images in extremely high resolution. A. Hamber’s contribution, dealing with the Vasari
project, gives a very thorough introduction into the technical problems rncountered in
handling images of extremely high quality and also explains the economic rationale behind
an approach to start on purpose with the highest quality of images available today on
prototypical hardware.
As these huge projects both were related to iustitutions which traditionally collect
source material for historical studies, it seemed wise to include also a view on the roJe
images would play in the data archives which traditionally have been of much importance
in the considerations of the AHC. E.S. Ore discusses what implications this type of machine
readable material should bave for tbe infrastructure of institutions specifically dedicated
to Humanities computing.
Image systems which deal with the archiving of pictorial material and manuscript
systems have so far generally fairly „shallow“ descriptions. At least in art history, moreover,
the rely quite frequently on pre-defint’d terminologies. G. Jaritz and 8. Schuh describe
how far and wby historical research needs a different approacb to grasp as much of the
intemal structure and the content of an image as possible.
Last not least R. Rowland, who acted as host of the workshop at Firenze, describes tbe
considerations which currently prepare the creation of another largescale archival database,
to contain !arge arnounts of material from the archives of the inquisition in Portugal. His
contribution tries to explore the way in which the more recent developments of image
processing can be embedded in the general services required for an archival system.
This series of workshop reports shall attempt to providr a broader basis for thorough
discussions of current methodological questions. ‚fheir main virtue shall be, that
it is produced sufficiently quick to become available, before developments in this field of
extremely quick development make them obsolete. We hope we have reached that goal:
the editor has to apologize, however, that due to the necessity to bring this volume out in
time, proofreading has by neccessity be not as intensive as it should have been. To which
􀂰nother shortcoming is added: none of the persons engaged in the final production of this
volume is a native speaker of English; so while we hope to have kept to the standards of
what might be described as „International“ or „Conti111mtal“ English, the native speakers
among the readers can only be asked for their tol(‚rance.
Göttingrn, August 1992