Pictorial Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative

Pictorial Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative
Pictorial Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative
Frank Colson and Wendy Hall*
1. The general issues: towards new interpretations
73
Our students 􀂍ive amidst images; as a general rule they have not been armed with the
ability to ‚read‘ them. They witness a curious and unprecedented fusion of technology,
imagination, necessity, philosophy and production which is continuously creating new images,
many of which are changing the culture within which we live. Both the presentation
of still, moving images and computer imaging itself have the potential for a dramatic impact
on the visual culture with which the historian must work. Most of the current uses
of computer imaging are of an integrative character, colonizing older established media
such as photography, video and cinema.1 While this development initially spawned the
notion of ‚hypermedia‘ and its attendant idea of access and intellectual participation, it
also enables the historian to probe more deeply than has previously been the case into the
nature of the visual evidence from which new interpretations can be derived.
Faced with such a powerful and integrative technology the task of historians is to
understand and influence the development of good practice which may more effectively
allow them to establish new forms of evidence and stimulate new interpretations. In this
Chapter we provide an overwiew of a prototype dataset designed to stimulate a criticism
of the historiography of contemporary Yugoslavia. We discuss the technical issues which
surround the creation of such a ‚dataset‘ and the ’navigation instruments‘ which a might be
used by a ‚user‘. Though we have attempted to devise an ‚Open Environment‘, and ‚generic
tools‘ which can be implemented by any user, we are aware that the act of ‚authoring‘
whether of ‚links‘ or a HiDES ITS always implies interpretation. Nonentheless we are
. convinced that the environment provided by Microcosm enables a student to identify the
values or ‚messages‘ embedded in the use which authors have made of the visual images
they employ in a way which is impossible for those authoring in traditional hypermedia.
For it can be argued that traditional hypertext authoring techniques are treacherous,
they embody an ‚implicit‘ rather than ‚explicit‘ interpretation. What can be said of text
applies equally to images, where technology is evolving in such a way that representation
can be mastered as ‚reality‘. Constructing software structures which encourage the bis­
torians of the contemporary world to evaluate the plethora, and, most imporatantly, to
distinguish Simulation, in all its forms, from recording is in itself a worthy task.
These !arger issues are inherently critical to teaching, but in Britain they have largely
been left to one side. For in a rush to employ new information technologies for a variety
• This essay has been produced with assistance from many colleagues within the HiDES
and Microcosm Groups in Southampton, especially Heather Williams from HiDES, Ian
Heath, Nicolas Beidner from Microcosm. The authors would also like to acknowledge the
support of the Leverhulme Trust. Needless to say the views expressed are the responsibility
of the author.
1 Andy Darley, „Big Screen, little screen: tbe arcbaeology of tecbnology“ in Digital Dialogues
Vol 2. No.2 p.82.
74 Frank Colson and Wendy Hall
of motives, many of which are irrelevent to this debate. lt is vital that software engineers
ignore the utilitarianism driving contemporary developments in the UK and concentrate
on the issues which academics confront in conducting their research. We must beware
lest the current context within which ‚history CBL software‘ is being created challenges
and concentrate on the ways in which such software stimulates the emergence of new
interpretations. We argue that it is the dynamics of a clash of new interpretations which
will ultimately immerse historians of all persuasions in new software and new technologies.
Debate between historians, Geyl’s stulf of history, rather than the bland acceptance of
nostrums of the pundits of so-called ‚more economic‘ means of ‚delivering learning‘ will
ultimately Iead to the adoption of new and powerful technologies on an impressive scale.2
As teachers we face an unusual challenge; to address the ‚history‘ written in these
media, and use the tools provide by the new technologies to hone the critical methods
which historians have long used so that students do not easily or worse still automatically
accept ’screen images‘ as ‚fact‘. At one Ievel such a task has its own own imperative in
stimnlating the student to contexualize photomantage images – often propaganda, so as
to understand their contribution to the interpretation of an historian. At the same time
the ability to deconstruct images should stand neophyte young historians in good stead
as critics of their colleagues‘ and contemporaries use of image as illustration rather than
analysis.3
The previous experience of the HiDES Project suggested that new imaging technologies
could be employed within Microcosm’s open environment to enable colleagues to
produce teaching packages (an ITS running native to Microcosm using stills and video
images with appropriate texts and sound) to tutor students in the critical use of images
as evidence. The advent of videodisc and the impressive range of powerful workstations
using the Intel i386 – i486 chip have stimulated the development of teaching packages
which couple the techniques of early versions of HiDES, Southampton’s Intelligent Tutoring
System with the intellectual advantages provided by hypertext. Such packages allow
the student to manipulate film, stills, audio, maps, text and statistical evidence, uaing proprietary
applications. Five are now in the course of development in a joint project, using
the resources available to two collaborating laboratories in Microcosm (in the Department
of Eiectronics and Computer Science) and HiDES (in the Department of History).
While the preparation of multimedia datasets uses techniques developed over several
years of practice, the new software and hardware environment provided by MicrocosmHiDES
has meant that some fundamental modifications have taken place. The mastering of
vid� demands an entirely different approach to the way in which sources are organised
and viewed, while the use of visual sequences on the one band, and powerful data or
text-retrieval applications on the other, poses significant issues in terms of programming,
data organisation and ret􀃝ieval. The scale of the operation undertaken is formidable, the
2 Paul Ramsden, „Lost in the Crowd?“, Times Higher Education Supplement, July 13th 1992,
p.l5.
9 Tim Druckrey, „Deadly Representations or Apocalpse Now.“ in Digital Dialogud Vol 2.
No.2. p.l7. The article, a telling analsis of the imagery of tbe Gulf War, refers to tbat episode of
human history as ‚history expressed through tbe neutrality of images‘.
Pietonal Informalion Systems and the Teaching Imperative 75
standard Iaservision videodisc can house 1 10,000 images, each of which might conceivably
have to be tagged, catalogued and furnished with its appropriate intellectual tools, on
the other band a database, such as the one used in the Project’s Viana database might
have 500,000 entries. The a.dvantages of a powerful multimedia software platform such as
Microcosm, which allows a user to save and retrieve links while providi􀂬g navigation tools
and output to a professional word-processing environment become self-evident.4 This work
is currently implemented in Microsoft Windows 3.1 on an i386 or i486 system using up to
8MBytes RAM and 320MBytes hard disc,interfaced with videodisc players, audio systems
and optical disc drives (WORM or CD-ROM) as appropriate.5 Given their considerable
power and versatility such systems are likely to comprise the Cuture generation of ‚history
workstations‘ for both research and teaching.
Five new ‚teaching-research‘ datasets are now designed to be housed on videodisc
and hard disc and have been developed as discrete publications in their own right –
together with appropriate hard copy. These new datasets, of which ‚War and Civil War in
Yugoslavia, 1941-45‘ is the first, are designed within the technical universe of a multimedia
environment. Students can pursue an enquiry, retrieving, examining and utilising the
materials of their choice, running applications (e.g. for the purposes of handling large
files or databases as appropriate) while working up data for subsequent publication. A
‚resources file‘ (listing the types of sources available on the system, and a range of specific
‚help‘ files) can be used as a starting point for research, while Notepa.d facilities serve as
a collection point for data which might subsequently be transferred to a word-processing
package for desk-top publishing. Current prototypes use Microsoft ‚Word for Windows‘
for such a task.
While the HiDES ITS with its inherent ‚rules of dialogue‘ can be provided to a student
as a simple form of ‚help‘, one which has been authored as a subtle and powerful manner.
The student might be urged to use the Notepad as a means of ‚opening up‘ the discussion.
HiDES could also be consulted by a student attempting an essay or project on this or an
allied topic, and seeking information through the exploitation of domain files designed for
this purpose. ‚Authoring routines‘ have been developed using one of the ‚modes‘ specified
4 For a technical description of Microcosm aee: Fountain, A., Hall, W., Heath, I. &l Davis,
H. „MICROCOSM: An Open Model for Hypermedia With Dynamic Linkingn . CSTR 90-12,
Departmeot of Electronics and Computer Scieoce, Univeraity of Southamptoo, 1990. A detailed
descriptioo of a case study using Microcosm to manipulate the files from a major corpus may be
found io F.Colsoo aod W.Hall ‚Prologue to Partition – Viceroy Mounthatten and the handling
of the I.N.A. Crisis – a Multimedia HiDES‘, History and Computing Vo1.3. No.l. pp. 89-98.
6 This dataset is described in ‚Microcosm-HiDES – An example from a teachiog dataset‘
Wendy Hall and Frank Colson with Ian Heath, Jean Colson and Heather Williams. Preseoted
at the IV Conference of the U.K Branch of the AHC, Southampton, April 12th, 1991. – The
author is deeply indebted to the assistance received from Heather Williams and Stefan Pavlowitch
in providing ideaa and challenging materials to the joint team. This package was first shown in
prototype form in Southampton on April 12th, and uses the full range of Microcosm’s facilities.
Ian Heath, Jean Colson and Wendy Hall programmed the links used io the package – ooly a
portion of which was demoostrated.
76 Frank Co/son and Wendy Hall
in existing HiDES manuals and developed by the Project over the last three years. Such
routines assume that a student would have access to Library facilities, and would be
preparing a paper for discussion at a subsequent seminar.
The student who wishes to understand the social and economic roots of the Yugoslav
Civil War of 1941-45 faces some formidable problems.5 For, as can be imagined the conßict
in this fragmented society was not only vicious, but highly complex – its outcome the
reßection of deep fissures in the society of that region of the Balkans. lt began with the
predominately Serbian coup d’etat of March 1941 and deepened with the countervailing
action of Croatian separatists. The division of the country among its Axis neighbours
and the establishment of the NDH (the Axis puppet state of Greater Croatia), as weil
as the occupation by the armies of Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, further complicated the
Situation. Furthermore the emergence of two contending resistance movements within the
area of German-occupied Serbia meant that it was difficult for the Western Allies to gauge
the extent of resistance to the Axis. A crucial question in studying the war in Yugoslavia is
what exactly were the factors which made the British first back General Mihailowitch and
bis Yugoslav Army of the Homeland (Chetnicks), then switch to supporting the Partisans
led by Tito, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
For a good deal of the War Yugoslavia was regarded as a sideshow, the emergence of
resistance was initially viewed as a goood morale booster for the other occupied peoples of
Europe and for the British at a time when the Axis powers effectively dominated almost
the whole area of Europe. The conßict between the Chetniks, and the Partisans assumed a
crucial significance when it threatened to impinge on the cooperation between the Western
Allies and the USSR and when Yugoslavia became strategically important in the deception
plan to distract the Axis from the landings in Sicily and to divert forces from the Bastern
Front when it became apparant that a Second Front could not be opened in Western
Europe in 1943.
The sheer variety of data contained in the package, film, videodisc, collections of
printed and (transcribed} manuscript sources, poees a significant didactic problem. The
student is therefore invited to Iook at an introduction written for the package together with
a HiDES ITS routine designed to encourage the systematic exploration of the subject.
One tactic taken by the authors invites a student to use this vast array of evidence to
consider the role which resistance to the Axis might have played in the strategic thinking
of the Allies, especially the British. There were undoubtedly advisors to SOE in Cairo
and London who argued that the most valuable form of resistance was sabotage. In tbe
Yugoslav case the cutting of the railway links between Germany and Greece was seen
as directly beneficial to the Allied cause, while the impact of sabotage on the morale of
occupied Europe was thought to be of general utility. Given that the civil war between
Chetniks and Partisans was a fact of life in much of Yugoslavia throughout the years of
8 The poesibilitiee of DVI as a route for atorage/accese are currently unde-r investigation.
There ia a strong case to be made for tranaputer power to be used in dealing with the compresaion/
decompreaaion problems associated with the handling and atorage of large numbers of
images. The group ia aware or this posaibility, but ia clear that the aohware interface will have to
be rar easier to manipulate than appears to be the case at present.
Pictorial Information Systems and the Teaching Imperative 77
the war, it might be reasoned that Allied support would be provided for whichever ofthe
two groups could guarantee to conduct the most effective sabotage Operations.
lf this policy bad been apparant to the Chetnik leadership they would have perceived
a dilemma. For General Mihailovic, appears to have been attempting to build up a ’secret
army‘ preparing for an Ustanak (General Rising) once the Allies reached the Balkans, and
was therefore anxious to assume a strictly defensive role, husbanding his resources against
the virtual certainty of massive German reprisals and conducting a vicious but piecemeal
war with the Ustasa (Croatian Fascists) forces in the NDH and the Partisans alike. A
student could appreciate Mihailovic’s strategy by reßecting on the ethnic geography of
German-occupied Serbia, as weil as Croatia, by viewing film data, stills of the ’normality of
peasant life‘ and images of the enlistment of Chetnick forces. Mihailovic’s dispositions and
Strategie a8sumptions may weil become clear, as might his strategic thinking. The imagery
of a peasant society at its timeless pursuits in Serbia proper illustrates tli.e continuity of
society and the defensive strategy of Mihailovic. It stands in vivid contrast to the plight
of Serbs living in the NDH whose society was being destroyed by the Ustasa persecution.
Tito’s forces, many of whom coosisted of Serbs from the NDH, have a different appearance;
as their Ieader sought to instill a sense of ‚modernity‘ which he believed to be
inherent in the ‚revolutionary war’in which he was engaged. Images were powerful – they
bad a powerful meaning in both Yugoslavia and elsewhere, the traditionalist Mihailovic
and the modern-revolutionary Josep Broz Tito were both in contact with the Allies, and
agents were sent by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to encourage resistance.
The accounts of the agents sent in to contact Mihailovic and Tito reßected the policies
and images of the two military Ieaders and their forces as weil as those of the agents themselves.
The latter can best be appreciated both by a textual analysis of their dispatches and
a reading of the photographic images they collected. The interpretation of such evidence
has naturally given rise to a substantial scholarship. The student can examine excerpts
from various accounts of the conßict, including those of Lees and Deakin; analysing their
language; their views on the military value to the Allies of either Partisans or Chetnics are
in clear contrast.
The problern with students of this period is that they may be defeated by the plethora
of evidence, maps, oral files, videodisc materials, images which might be used to debate
the issues raised by other scholars. A file written by an historian provides for an ITS which
addresses a specific episode in the tortuous relationship between Mihailovic and the British,
a request from London to cut the line between Belgrade and Salonika by destroying the !bar
bridges. Maps, contemporary plans, audio and stills are brought into play in an attempt
to evaluate the real significance of this Operation. For, though meticulously planned and
clearly weil within the capabilities of both the Chetniks and their British and US advisors,
the Operation was suddenly aborted by direct command from London.
The wealth of detail provided for the students allows them to place the reasoning be­
bind London ’s decision – arguably a decisive one for the fate of Yugoslavia – into a !arger
context. For much of the reasoning behind London’s decision to support the Partisans may
weil have been based upon the premise that Miha.ilovic’s forces were compromised with
the German occupying forces rather than a deeper comprehension of the nature of the
contesting movements and the extent to which the Chetniks were a force whose fundamen78
Frank Colson and Wendy Hall
tal strength lay in the degree of support which it received from the royalist peasantry of
Serbia aod the surrounding regions. Such an analysis necessarily Ieads the student to Iook
very closely at the social structure and demography of the regions under study, utilising
evidence from a raoge of statistical sources, stills and film, held in other applications (in
this case Superbase 4, or aod Excell) accessible from within Microcosm. While the package
has initially been trialled for student use during 1991-92, it is quite clear that it will
become a powerful stimulant to student use.
A second package is designed to probe the ambiguities of national identity in France
under the Third and Fourth Republics, using the idea of ‚Outsiders‘, namely Alsacians and
Jews aa a prism through which to allow the student to develop a wider understanding of the
social and political context of Fraoce under German occupation. Stillsand short ‚factoids‘
have largely been used by the authors of the package, and the powerful yet evanescent
quality of images is seen as catalytic; enabling the student to develop insights which cao
best be exploited using both text and image handling applications. The film-documentary
Au Revoir Les Enfants is shown in this context as a foil, through which the historiography
of that episode can be a.ssessed, drawing upon archival resources and case-studies.
The fact that Microcosm uniquely provides the historian with the ability to carry out
simultaneous analysis of film and allied media means that at long last film can be used as
an effective tool for the discussion, rather than the mere illustration of social structures
and the perception of change within them. Using Microcosm to archive, control and dissect
the visual image (a process than involves the manipulation and traosposition of images),
the historiao cao assess film as document – how and why were films made, these images
edited, these dialogues inter-cut, unpacking the myriad editorial and scripting decisions
which can then expose the power of the film as document.
There is a further aod crucial difference between the study of Yugoslavia and that of
France. In the latter the interactive notepads will not only respond to student comment in a
standard CBL fashion, but they will also be prompted by students‘ use of both generic and
specific links so as to enable a student’s progress and ‚implicit argument‘ to be charted for
Cuture use in a tutorial. In this sense both student and tutor would not merely be looking
at the results of an investigation, but would be able to trace the way in which it had been
undertaken.
Clearly the range of resources which can be provided and the effectiveness of the exercises
which run using powerful applications, allied to the greater sophistication of newer
varients of Microcosm (which will use artificial intelligence in the shape of expert systems
as an engine through which to parse the linkage data stored under Microcosm) enable
those using computer based teaching to respond to the central questions of interpretation
explicitly discussed by the historians working in a given field. This is because the student
can be prompted by the knowledge stored in generic and specific links generated by the
authors to sift through a range of evidence responding to an driginal enquiry rather than
one ’setup‘ through HiDES. The way in which this will work is at present under examination,
but the multitudinous numbers of links created by a student’s examination and the
extent to which such links can become complex malte it imperative that a powerful ‚engine‘
is installed, so aa to generate efficient responses and to make authoring a task which is
Pietonal Information Systems and lhe Teaching Imperative 79
possible within the resources available to the historian-author and retain a high degree of
intellectual satisfaction.
Though we can only begin to hazard a guess at this stage, it is our contention that
two things will happen – a student who uses such a system will be able to question the
use to which historians have put evidence in a powerfully systematic way, at the same time
the authors, and prospective tutors will have had their intellectual assumptions ruthlessly
laid bare .
. S.ce…tary (Uiq
Stceniuy (61l’tlcl\)
M>ps (aalaatlu)
Figure 1 : Screen dump ‚The crowd with a portrait of Tito‘
80 Frank Colson and Wendy Hall
2. The Tools ofthe Trade. A User’s View of a Microcosm-HiDES ‚Package‘:
‚The Civil War in Yugoslavia, 1941-45‘.
Students have recently been using the images and text-liles available in the ‚Yugoslav
Civil War, 1941-45‘ and work in this area is sufficiently weil advanced to provide examples
of the tools which might be used by students in the course of their work. The resources
available to them are vast, they include primary manuscript and printed sources (the
former in transcribed and facsimile); secondary works (UK and other); maps (created for
the purpose); still photographs; visual abstracts (moving icons created for the purpose);
videodisc materials (a comparison with the Danish experience 1940-45 – designed to
provoke discussion); and audio materials comprising both commentaries and interviews
from those who played a role in the civil war. A ‚Contents‘ lile also provides for a ‚glossary
ofterms‘, ‚dictionary‘, and HiDES Help screen – available through ‚buttons‘. Microcosm’s
open structure means that these can be rapidly accessed.
The Screen shot [ligure 1] illustrates the ‚resources‘ lile ( containing the Iist of contents),
a ‚tour‘ lile has been designed which will enable students to cantrast the images produced
during the coup of March 1941 which brought the pro-Allied government of King Peter to
power, and those produced du ring the celebration ofthat event four years later und er Tito.
This ‚tour‘ has activated a photograph of ‚The Crowd with a portrait of Tito‘, a HiDES
‚help‘ lile (containing an ‚interpretation‘ of the events of 1941-45), and a ‚History‘ which
indicates that the user has viewed the lirst of a sequence of pictures of the commemorations
of the coup of 1941 which took place in March 1945. The historian’s ‚reading‘ of these
photographs is open to criticism from the students using the ‚Tour File‘. This facility,
(available through a ‚Mirnic‘ Icon) provides a sequence of still and moving images which
allow a user to do two things: to ‚tour‘ the resources (following a ’slide show‘ through the
materials to hand with an audio commentary closing with a HiDES screen): to gain an
overview clearly incorporating an ‚historian’s view‘ of the course of events in Yugoslavia
1941-45. The ‚Tour‘ has been devised in such a way that it takes the user through the
range of resources available on the system, including audio and video. A user does not need
to be constrained by the sequence of liles displayed in the ‚mimic‘, but can use links which
may be consulted via a text file to ‚jump off‘ to exploit the text and other resources at
any point in the ‚tour‘. The HiDES Help, (in this case Interpr . txt) is deliberately much
more ‚directed‘, and acts in the same way as a HiDES Historian ’s interpretation lile in that
it encourages the user to focus in on a particular episode ( the British plan to disable the
Belgrade-Salonika railway by blowing the Ibar Valley bridges) in the ’struggle between the
Partisans and the Chetniks‘ and therefore advises study of a nurober of secondary works.
This episode has been chosen because it allows a user to assess the role played by decisions
made in London on the overall outcome of the Civil War. Both the Mirnie (Tour liles) and
Interpretation Files have been written in such a way that they invite the user to exploit
the entire range of evidence.
The ‚resources‘ file normally remains resident on the screen at all times, to provide
students with a complete catalogue of all relevant materials. It is useful to follow the
course of an exploration. Students could follow from the ‚mimic‘ files to search stills,
moving images and videodisc sequences. In doing so they might weil use the ‚buttons‘ on
the ‚Resources‘ or Interpr. txt liles, but it is more likely that they would wish to pursue
Pietonal Information Systems and lhe Teaching Imperative 81
their enquiries regardless of the efforts of previous authors or users. Such searches might
weil use three other tools, the ‚generic links‘ which were already authored, the ’show links‘
tool (icon on lower left of the screen) which allows a user to discover whether or not links
have already been created using words in a given section of text, as weil as a facility which
acts as a full text retrieval system.
One such enquiry might weil form a view of the Chetniks, using rare photos [as in
figure 2; cf. also 3) which call attention to the extent to which the Chetnik forces were
fired by loyalty to Orthodox traditions hewn in the villages of German-Occupied Serbia.
Such photos as that of the swearing in service might weil emerge from a search looking at
Cbetniks, then searching for links which refer to ‚Orthodox‘.
Figure 2: Screen dump ‚Swearing in ceremony‘
82 Frank Colson and Wendy Hall
Such a search might weil encourage a user to consult the HiDES ITS which urges
users to write in their assessment of the various reports on the combatants, focusing on
the extent to which Allied Liaison Officers commented on the extent to which religious
factors intluenced Partisan and Chetnik alike. In order to carry this out the ITS dialogue
might weil take a user through a careful study of these reports, emphasising the extent
to which such documents could be read as attempts to inftuence the British and Allied
Commands to a particular point of view. The students are able to move from their own
notepad to consult the resources, or – as the dialag box indicates, reveal a series of
links which might be explored – from the vantage affered by the ‚caption text‘ which
accompanies the photograph.
Figure 3: Screen dump ‚Area and population ‚
Pietonal Information Systems and the Ttaching Imperative 83
One significant advantage of an ITS routiue running under ‚Microcosm‘ is the student ’s
ability to retain various response files on screen and work from these files as weil as the
Notepad in order to develop an argument. In this case exploration of a source suggests that
the Mansfield Report (one of the reports held in the archive) implies that the attempts
of Allied strategists to spur Mihailovic and the considerable forces under bis command
to carry out large-scale sabotage activities against the German occupying forces might
weil put an intolerable strain upon the Yugoslav Army of the Homeland, which regarded
itself as the sole legitimate defender of Serbian tradition awaiting the possibility of Allied
invasion. Tbe extent to which such forces could be regarded as ‚collaborating‘ with the
German army of occupation was to become a critical point for British and U.S. observers.
The user might then search for the extent to which such ‚collaboration‘ was cited in other
texts held on the system. The fact that Maclean’s report surfaces at the hea.d of the Iist
in the dialog box encourages a student to note its existence in the notepad, and consult
the ‚ITS‘. The domain files indicate the extent to which the discussion of ‚collaboration‘
should be understood in terms of the political and ethnic conflicts taking place at the
time rather than through the ‚!arger context‘ provided by war between the Allies and the
Axis Powers. This ‚!arger context‘ suffuses the langnage in the report of Fitzroy Maclean
as weil as that of the various policy documents discussing the strategy to be followed by
the Allies in Yugoslavia. The ‚resources‘ and ‚interpretation‘ files are available for further
consultation.
As might be expected the conßict between scholars owes much to the Contradietory
evidence provided by the reports of the Liaison officers, regarding the character and activities
of General Mihailovic. A student might very properly be concerned to separate the
historian’s views of this controversial figure by isolating an author’s use of the materials
relating to Mihailovic from other documents available in the dataset. This has not previously
been possible in a hypertext environment since the very selection of materials and
links, automatically implies a degree of bias that might well be more clearly associated
with a traditional publications, rather than a collection of materials which happen to be
available in electronic form. lt is our view that Microcosm-HiDES provides the means
whereby a student can isolate and criticise ‚authoring bias‘ inherent in the selection of
images and text resident on the dataset.
The materials which have been selected for this package clearly reßect the arguments of
its authors, and the extent to which they echo a particular strain in the continuing clash of
interpretations between those who favour Lees‘ rather than Deakin’s interpretation can be
gauged in various ways. In first place a student can use the text-retrieval software to assess
the extent to which the dataset contains documents derived from a variety of provenances.
A rapid survey conducted by this means using keywords such as ‚collaborator‘ provides a
typical listing of primary printed sourccs central to the discussion of ‚collaboration‘ and
includes various official sources as well as Maclean ’s Report and the brief ‚biographical
note‘ on Mihailovic. A user could survey the wealth of materials using the text retrieval
on a range of keywords or duster of keywords, including references to various regions of
Yugoslavia, key military and political figures.
A ’survey‘ of the electronic archive available on this system might weil confirm the view
that the sources for the dataset tend to be drawn from Chetnik sources: this is particularly
84 Frank Co/son and Wendy Hall
evident in the ‚photographic data‘. This reftects the wealth of materials available to argue
the proposition that the Chetnik forces were drawn from the most traditional components
of the population, especially from Christian Orthodox Serbia – a search for references to
‚Orthodox‘ Christians indicates references in the many ‚caption texts‘ which a.ccompany
the photographs. Even so the system also calls attention to the Mansfield Report of March
1944, one of the most comprehensive a.ccounts of Mihailovic’s activities.
While the survey of resources provides student users with a corrective against bias
Microcosm also provides against the possibility that authors of the dataset might have
established ‚links‘ – a sure indication that one or another argument bad been deployed.
This, the ’second check for bias‘ allows the user to search for links which have already
been written by the author of the dataset. The dialeg box illustrates the result of a search
for the links which might have been authored on Mihailovic. These include a photograph
of Mihailovic, and various references to text files in which the controversial commander’s
activities are discussed, both by British and U.S. Liaison Officers. At the same time the
user can Iook at secondary a.ccounts of bis a.ctivities, using excerpts from the works of
writers such as Lees or Deakin which can be a.ccessed through the ‚resource‘ file.
Detecting ‚bias‘ by examining a version of a text which has already been programmed
into an application is extremely important. Guide a highly-recommended application may
be criticised in that it uses ‚embedded links‘ in a way which might disguise rather than
highlight such bias. The section of Lees‘ a.ccount displayed in the Guide screen is such an
illustration, Lees‘ clear bias in favour of Mihailovic’s forces and their roJe in the Yugoslav
Civil War stands out clearly not merely in the initial reference but in the ‚headings‘ selected
as prompts to further extracts. These should be compared to the ‚clean‘ version available
in the text files, and a.ccesibs le through the ‚resource file‘.
The Yugoslav Civil War Tea.ching Dataset has been designed to allow students to
exploit a wide range of data: current work with video and audio sources suggests that there
is no reason why these should not be consulted in the same mode. While inteltlretative
issues can never be excised from the materials to be presented, the software and data can
be designed and setup in a way which allows them to isolate and identify several different
forms of bias; compile their own collection, and (using the notepad) gradually create the
‚electronic essay‘, using moving video sequences which merely represent samples of film as
weil as audio clips, to define and argue the merits of various interpretations of this first
Yugoslav Civil War.
S. The authoring of a multimedia teaching package
The authoring of standard ITS pa.ckages has been described in the HiDES Autboring
Manual currently in version 2. This takes an author through the ‚feel and chara.cter of
sources‘, the ‚file structure‘, the use of applications and the programming of ‚domain‘ files.
HiDES have traditionally used one of four approa.ches to programming these files and may
be summarized as ‚debate‘, ‚progressive argument‘, ‚exposition‘ and ‚reconstruction‘.
While all four approa.ches may be used in a multimedia ITS dataset our initial experience
suggests that the ‚progressive argumeut‘ mode might be most effective in order to
provide support for the user who is attempting to assess the scale of resources which are
available within the system. This is because questions can be posed ‚within the system‘
Pietonal Information Systems and lhe Teaching Imperative 85
which might allow a user to couple together the resources required to develop an argument
using text, video, and audio sources.
The current experience of the Project suggests that ‚Exposition mode‘, which encourages
the user to complete an ‚exercise‘ using an application or a mimic, can best be adopted
for !arger corpora primarily organized as an ‚archive‘ rather than teaching dataset.
The ‚Yugoslavia‘ package is much more than a mere ‚collection of documents on the
Yugoslav crisis‘ such as might be found in an archive. It is a corpora constructed with an
interpretation in view, one which can certainly be questioned, and conceivably refuted, by
any reader. Unlike a traditional book, with which it might be compared, the materials
compiled on the system can be refashioned by users to their own ends. The author(s) of
the package simply argue one interpretation as a heuristic device designed to signal the
view that the roots of the crisis lie deep in the mentalities of the different ethnic groups of
which that ‚improbable survivor‘ was once comprised.
Naturally enough the issues posed by their interpretations have had to be faced fairly
and squarely from the outset and they impinge at four different Ievels, in the selection of
material, the programming of ‚links‘, the choice of applications, and the programming of
applications.
The advent of more powerful and effective scanning, screen and storage technologies
has meant that authors could be far more catholic in their selection of materials than has
previously been the case. Facsimile copies of oriSinal sources can be included where they
are thought to be necessary, especially in text where the transcription of such materials
into ASCII files of applications has involved an attempt to standardize orthography or in
video where the use of ‚micons‘ as ‚visual abstracts‘ might have implied a choice on the
part of the author. High CPU speeds and large discs also make a difference, since they
allow for the storage of and retrieval of !arger amounts of video data. lt is at this point that
authors selected the modes to be used in the presentation of visual and audio material.
Digital storage implies that data can be incorporated with relative ease, analog storage
(CD-ROM and Videodisc) provides a series of burdies which have to be tackled in various
ways. Our experience with early prototypes and the Mounthatten database suggested a
combination of ‚micons‘ and catalogues linked to the videodisc. Meanwhile audio materials
were digitized and included as files.
The second stage of authoring involved the writing of ’specific‘ and generic links. Since
specific links imply an interpretation of the materials, they should be used to provide files
which allow the user to explore the corpora. They might therefore most effectively be used
as ‚resource‘ files, or as highlights in texts which are written by the author of the package
and have been deliberately designed to indicate a given interpretation. ‚Generic links‘
might often be used as a ‚dictionary‘ facility, designed to provide access to glossaries, or
prosopographical data, or even links with materials available on other applications. ‚Tours‘
might be chosen as ‚approaches‘ to the corpora. In the Yugoslavia dataset, the choice of
‚links‘ implying a greater ‚authorial‘ intervention in the debate indicates the extent to
which accusations of ‚collaboration‘ between Chetnik and German occupying forces might
be viewed within a very specific context – that provided by the discussion between Special
Operations Executive and the British Cabinet.
86 Frank Colson and Wendy Hall
The third stage of authoring implies a choice of a specific application. To a certain
extent these are dictated by the type of material within the corpora. A database management
system ( Superbase 4) was used as a means of housing a catalogue of the non-textual
materials. At the same time powerful word-processing facilities were incorporated and
provided users with the ability to store, explore and workup their data.
The choice of applications naturally implies a particular mode of interpretation. Databases
can be used to manipulate substantial files and can be interrogated as part of an
investigation of the corpus. In this context each application has to be accompanied by
appropriate ‚help‘ or ‚interpretation‘ files, written by the author of the corpus.
The final stage of authoring entails applications programming to provide ‚exercises‘
or ‚assistance‘ to the user. Though the ITS has been developed primarily as an historians‘
tool, Guide, Toolbook and Autborware could also be used for this purpose.
Our experience suggests that such applications should not ’steer‘ the student too
directly, but should point up failure to consult a given type of source. They should also be
programmed in such a way that the materials in the package could therefore furnish weight
to new interpretations, supported from a weight of evidence which could not previously
have been placed within the student’s grasp.
Microcosm and HiDES ITS provide a means by which students‘ might be stimulated
to ‚read‘ images, and begin to distinguish the extent to which they might have been
manipulated by Chetnik and Partisan alike. For in understanding such manipulation
students may be led to question existing interpretations of events such as the First Yugoslav
Civil War.
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