Digital Technology Applications for Discovery of Contextual Links among Records
Developments, Challenges, and Prospects Regarding Utilisation of Historical Information Resources From Medieval China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52731/liir.v006.400Keywords:
Archival science, Chinese historical records, Context, Digital technology application, Knowledge discoveryAbstract
Compared with those developed for born-digital records, ICT applications for digitised historical documents remain relatively immature, awaiting further development. In response to growing interest in local historical research, the utilisation of digital technologies to discover contextual links among scattered records has yielded noteworthy outcomes. This paper examines the current state of digital technology utilised for Chinese historical research and education through case studies. Three representative platforms, THDL, CGKSP, and CHLAD, which rediscover and present contextual links among fragmented Chinese medieval records, were selected for in-depth analysis. This paper examines the potential of introducing archival discourse on context to enhance the representation of historical record aggregates with greater consistency and integrity on these platforms.
References
K. Theimer, "Archives in Context and as Context," Journal of Digital Humanities, vol. 1, no. 2, 2012.
P. Burke, "Context in Context," Common Knowledge, vol. 28, no. 1, 2022, pp. 11–40.
R. Hirsch, "The permanence of Provenance: The ‘Two Traditions’ and the American archival profession," Journal of Archival Organization, vol. 8, issue 1, 2010, pp. 54–72.
F. Guanyan, "Making better out of technologies: Responses of Interpares to Digital Records Management challenges," Proc. the 10th International Joint Conf. Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, 2018, pp. 387–397.
K. Theimer, "A distinction worth exploring: ‘Archives’ and ‘Digital Historical Representations’," Journal of Digital Humanities, vol. 3, no. 2, 2014.
B. Shen and P. Yang, "Digital technology and the notion of history: A study of the relationship between historical database and historical methodology in China," Historiography Quarterly, no. 2, 2017, pp. 87–95+159. [In Chinese]
A. Walsham, "The social history of the Archive: Record-Keeping in early modern Europe," Past & Present, vol. 230, issue suppl_11, 2016, pp. 9–48.
Y. Wang and J. Yang, "The Archives of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the ‘Study of Archives of the Ming and Qing Dynasties’," Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 7, issue 3, 2024, pp. 34–41.
Philip C.C. Huang, "County Archives and the study of Local Social History," Modern China, vol. 8, no. 1, 1982, pp. 133–143.
Y. Ding and X. Cao, "The significance and principles of archival compilation work - Basic knowledge lecture on archival compilation (Part One) [档案史料编纂工作的意义和原则——档案史料编纂的基本知识讲座(一)],” Archives Science Bul-letin, issue 1, 1980, pp. 55–60. [In Chinese]
S. Chen, "Information Technology for historical document analysis," PhD disser-tation, College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, National Taiwan Univ., Taipei, 2011. [In Chinese]
C, Xia and L. Zhang, "The application of Linked Data in Shanghai Library’s service of Genealogy Digital Humanities," Library Journal, vol. 35, no. 10, 2016, pp. 26–34. [In Chinese]
C. Xia, W. Liu, and L. Zhang, "Implementation of a Linked Data-Based Genealogy Knowledge Service Platform for Digital Humanities," Data and Information Man-agement, vol. 2, issue 1, 2018, pp. 15–26.
Y. Qian, Z. Xing, and X. Shi, "From collection resources to intelligent data: Con-struction of intelligent digital humanities platform for local historical documents of Shanghai Jiao Tong University," Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 36, issue 2, 2021, pp. 439–448.
M. Tang and J. Zhang, "Research on the process of organising Local Historical Documents from the perspective of Provenance: A case study of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Library [来源视角下的地方历史文献整理流程研究——以上海交通大学图书馆为例]," Culture Journal, no. 12, 2016, pp. 219–222. [In Chinese]
Experts Group on Archival Description, International Council on Archives, "Records in contexts: Conceptual model," Nov. 2023; https://www.ica.org/app/uploads/2024/01/ric-cm-1.0_0.pdf.
