5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[MIS17-P09] Rekiske: An interdisciplinary platform for exchanging knowledge and experience about Japanese historical materials
Keywords:Historical materials, Interdisciplinary collaboration, Sharing information system, Database, Historical climatology
Researchers in many fields, including the natural sciences, seismology, climatology, and the humanities, use historical materials. These materials describe events related to nature, humans, and society, such as weather, earthquakes, and harvests. “Rekiske" is a platform designed to share not only bibliographic and academic information on such materials, but also the experience and knowledge of researchers through interdisciplinary collaboration.
The use of information found in historical materials starts with the exploration and acquisition of materials, converting handwritten text to digital text, extracting the information necessary for the research, and constructing a dataset integrating all of the above. The data structuring process is particularly difficult for scholars, other than historians.
Furthermore, until now, determining historical materials containing necessary information has relied on chance, such as meeting someone with detailed knowledge of the material at a conference or similar event. To overcome this problem, we aimed to archive the information contained in historical materials and make them searchable in a database. Although it is often thought that historical materials are only meaningful if they are accurate and scrutinized, Rekiske aims to accumulate information more comfortably. For example, it allows simple posts that might say “It seems that this historical material says something like this …”. In this way, it would be possible to "preserve" knowledge and experience that remain only in someone's mind. As a result, Rekiske facilitates researchers in identifying and obtaining useful historical materials for their research easily and enabling them to share their experience and expertise with others.
Rekiske carries information on historical materials in card format. It is standard practice to compile all the information for each piece of historical material using the one-information-one-card method to create various cards corresponding to a single item, even if some cards are slightly incorrect. Using original sources, the database can provide information on a range of historical materials and data in various formats and fields, including reprinted and integrated data for analysis.
Rekiske is currently in the pilot stage. Manuals are being prepared for general users searching for historical information and for editorial users to create and register historical information cards. A Rekiske prototype was built in 2018, and the current Rekiske model, Version 1, was released in 2019. Version 2, developed in 2020, utilized a data schema based on a card-type model. In 2024, the GeoLOD (https://geolod.ex.nii.ac.jp/) database of place names will be used to enhance map display and links, and the inquiry form will be made more user-friendly. In Version 2, the total number of the six types of registration cards (work cards, item cards, review cards, location cards, repository cards, and reference cards) exceeds 900, enhancing the volume of information. Additional cards will be added in the future, for example, by high school students studying historical climatology and historical material specialists working at local collection libraries.
The goal is to increase the number of users in more fields, both as general users and as card registrants, to make the site more valuable for all parties. Additionally, we will further improve its usability.
The use of information found in historical materials starts with the exploration and acquisition of materials, converting handwritten text to digital text, extracting the information necessary for the research, and constructing a dataset integrating all of the above. The data structuring process is particularly difficult for scholars, other than historians.
Furthermore, until now, determining historical materials containing necessary information has relied on chance, such as meeting someone with detailed knowledge of the material at a conference or similar event. To overcome this problem, we aimed to archive the information contained in historical materials and make them searchable in a database. Although it is often thought that historical materials are only meaningful if they are accurate and scrutinized, Rekiske aims to accumulate information more comfortably. For example, it allows simple posts that might say “It seems that this historical material says something like this …”. In this way, it would be possible to "preserve" knowledge and experience that remain only in someone's mind. As a result, Rekiske facilitates researchers in identifying and obtaining useful historical materials for their research easily and enabling them to share their experience and expertise with others.
Rekiske carries information on historical materials in card format. It is standard practice to compile all the information for each piece of historical material using the one-information-one-card method to create various cards corresponding to a single item, even if some cards are slightly incorrect. Using original sources, the database can provide information on a range of historical materials and data in various formats and fields, including reprinted and integrated data for analysis.
Rekiske is currently in the pilot stage. Manuals are being prepared for general users searching for historical information and for editorial users to create and register historical information cards. A Rekiske prototype was built in 2018, and the current Rekiske model, Version 1, was released in 2019. Version 2, developed in 2020, utilized a data schema based on a card-type model. In 2024, the GeoLOD (https://geolod.ex.nii.ac.jp/) database of place names will be used to enhance map display and links, and the inquiry form will be made more user-friendly. In Version 2, the total number of the six types of registration cards (work cards, item cards, review cards, location cards, repository cards, and reference cards) exceeds 900, enhancing the volume of information. Additional cards will be added in the future, for example, by high school students studying historical climatology and historical material specialists working at local collection libraries.
The goal is to increase the number of users in more fields, both as general users and as card registrants, to make the site more valuable for all parties. Additionally, we will further improve its usability.