At long final nosotros are laid upwards to offering a v0.2 beta unloose of the World Historical Gazetteer (WHG) at http://dev.whgazetteer.org. We promise that spatial historians as well as spatio-temporal infrastructure developers volition live interested inwards taking a hold off at what nosotros are building, experimenting amongst their information or provided samples. It is a “sandbox,” as well as thus cipher volition live saved for the fourth dimension beingness (that volition alter soon). There are 5-6 months remaining inwards the term of our initial NEH grant, fourth dimension plenty to consummate most of what nosotros planned for this phase, as well as to contain to a greater extent than suggestions from users as well as potential contributors equally nosotros movement toward futurity planning as well as development.
The site includes a brief guide titled “WHG Beta Release: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Tour,” which outlines what is there, what yous tin practice as well as how, remaining challenges, as well as what is inwards the works. What follows is a higher degree introduction.
Places as well as Traces The World Historical Gazetteer is a Linked Open Data platform for publishing, linking, discovering, as well as visualizing contributed records of attested historical places and traces. Our initial focus has been on places, but nosotros are working experimentally to demonstrate their integration inside the platform amongst what nosotros at nowadays telephone outcry upwards traces–defined equally spider web resources close historical entities for which location inwards fourth dimension as well as infinite is of scholarly as well as full general interest. We are considering 3 classes of traces for the fourth dimension being: agents (people as well as groups), works (e.g. artifacts, texts, datasets), as well as events (e.g. journeys, conflict). Our objective has been to create the offset large-scale spatial infrastructure for world history: oriented toward documenting the human past times at the global scale, as well as peculiarly the geography of global as well as transregional connections. Our accessioning procedure is intended to eventually live largely self-directed; getting it to that stage agency working straight as well as hands-on amongst our early on contributors.
LOD Publication Registered users of WHG tin issue their seat records equally Linked Open Data exactly past times uploading them inwards Linked Places format (or the LP-TSV version intended for relatively simpler records). We run into LOD publication equally a primal characteristic for researchers who are non inwards a seat to stand upwards up their ain spider web interfaces amongst per-place pages. Once uploaded, each tape volition create got a permanent URI as well as live accessible inwards our graphical interface as well as API; on their way to beingness LOD inwards skilful standing. The dataset tin live browsed straightaway past times its possessor inwards a searchable tabular array as well as map, but turning the uploaded dataset into a contribution for accessioning requires some farther steps. The information needs to create got equally many asserted links to call government equally possible, as well as augmentations of geometry where that is missing as well as findable. We render reconciliation services for that purpose.
Reconciliation Simply put, reconciliation is the procedure of identifying matches betwixt records of named entities. In this example the records are for places, as well as the matches are betwixt a researcher’s records as well as those inwards existing seat call authorities. So far, nosotros render reconciliation services for the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) as well as Wikidata; DBpedia as well as GeoNames are planned. The reconciliation procedure has 2 steps: 1) sending records to the authority, as well as 2) reviewing the prospective matches returned as well as accepting or declining them equally appropriate. The results of this somewhat laborious procedure are 1) links, as well as 2) to a greater extent than geometry. Once augmented inwards this way, a dataset is laid upwards for accessioning.
Accessioning The final mensuration is some other reconciliation endeavour — this fourth dimension to the WHG index. Each tape is compared to the growing WHG index to create upwards one's heed if nosotros create got a contributed attestation for the seat nevertheless or not. If nosotros do, the incoming tape becomes a “child” or “leaf” inwards the laid of attestations for the place. If the seat is non nevertheless accounted for, the novel tape becomes a “parent” — the seed for a novel laid of attestations. At this stage, an automatic linking tin live made if 2 records part an ascendency match, but the residuum volition create got to live reviewed equally described above.
Graphical Interface The opening covert of WHG offers users search of places as well as traces. We attempt to offering plenty context on the opening covert to seat the likeliest match. Once yous seat a seat of interest, clicking its call bring yous to a “place portal” screen–where everything nosotros create got close the place, or linked to it inwards some way, volition appear: attestations from contributors, associated traces, nearby places, physical geographic context (rivers, watersheds, ecoregions). The seat portal is really much a work-in-progress at this stage. Several other features are also on our near-term to practice list, including advanced search; to a greater extent than as well as amend maps; user information collections; projection squad ‘workspace’; batching of reconciliation tasks; as well as more.
A Word About Architecture There are 2 information stores inside the WHG platform: a relational database (PostgreSQL) as well as a high-speed index (Elasticsearch). All uploaded information gets imported to a laid of relational tables whose names stand upwards for to the elements of Linked Places format: places, place_name, place_type, place_geom, place_link, place_when, place_related, place_description, as well as place_depiction. Contributed information is most readily managed inwards that form. Upon accessioning, records are added to the index inwards the way described nether Reconciliation above.
An API This business office of the WHG platform is 1 of the most important, as well as the to the lowest degree developed correct now. Stay tuned for farther developments. Our intention is to render access to both contributors’ private records as well as datasets from the database (when designated past times their possessor equally public), as well as to the aggregating index records; both amongst numerous as well as useful filtering capabilities.
Content Our index has been instantiated amongst records from modern gazetteer resources: 1) close 1,000 of the world’s most populous cites from GeoNames, 2) 1.8 1 chiliad 1000 seat records from Getty TGN, 3) close 1,500 societies from the D-Place anthropological repository; as well as 4) major rivers, lakes, as well as mount ranges from Natural world as well as Wildlife Research Institute. To this modern “core” nosotros create got begun adding historical data: 1) 10,600 entities harvested from the index of the Atlas of World History (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), offering wide but shallow global coverage; as well as 2) our offset specialist gazetteer, HGIS de las Indias, which consists of around 15,000 settlements as well as territories inwards colonial Latin America. There are several additional large datasets inwards the queue, which nosotros volition live adding inwards partnership amongst contributors. Some are previewed equally rut maps on our Maps page. Broad coverage of modern names amongst increasing historical depth as well as connections supplied past times draw data.Our Pelagios Connections The WHG platform borrows extensively from the Peripleo application developed past times Rainer Simon of the Pelagios project, extending it significantly inwards a few ways. Our backend architecture closely mimics that underlying both Peripleo as well as the Recogito annotation tool, as well as nosotros are actively collaborating amongst Rainer as well as the entire Pelagios Network squad on several aspects of this work. In particular, nosotros are co-developing the information format standards for contributions to both systems: Linked Places format, as well as a nascent Linked Traces annotation format.
Feedback We welcome suggestions, critiques, fifty-fifty praise :^) – as well as in that location is an electronic mail shape on the site which makes it slowly to offering it. Please behave amongst us inwards this active evolution stage as well as depository fiscal establishment check dorsum equally nosotros realize the system’s potential to a greater extent than fully over the side past times side several months. Look for farther weblog posts as well as follow us on Twitter; nosotros tweet progress as well as related information equally @WHGazetteer as well as @kgeographer.
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