Visualization and analytics of codicological data of Hebrew books

The goal is to provide a proper data model, using a common vocabulary, to decrease the heterogenous nature of these datasets as well as its inherent uncertainty caused by the descriptive nature of the field of Codicology. This research project was developed with the goal of applying data visualization and data mining techniques to the field of Codicology and Digital Humanities. Using Hebrew manuscript data as a starting point, this dissertation proposes an environment for exploratory analysis to be used by Humanities experts to deepen their understanding of codicological data, to formulate new, or verify existing, research hypotheses, and to communicate their findings in a richer way. To improve the scope of visualizations and knowledge discovery we will try to use data mining methods such as Association Rule Mining and Formal Concept Analysis. The present dissertation aims to retrieve information and structure from Hebrew manuscripts collected by codicologists. These manuscripts reflect the production of books of a specific region, namely "Sefarad" region, within the period between 10th and 16th.A presente dissertação tem como objetivo obter conhecimento estruturado de manuscritos hebraicos coletados por codicologistas. Estes manuscritos refletem a produção de livros de uma região específica, nomeadamente a região "Sefarad", no período entre os séculos X e XVI. O objetivo é fornecer um modelo de dados apropriado, usando um vocabulário comum, para diminuir a natureza heterogénea desses conjuntos de dados, bem como sua incerteza inerente causada pela natureza descritiva no campo da Codicologia. Este projeto de investigação foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de aplicar técnicas de visualização de dados e "data mining" no campo da Codicologia e Humanidades Digitais. Usando os dados de manuscritos hebraicos como ponto de partida, esta dissertação propõe um ambiente para análise exploratória a ser utilizado por especialistas em Humanidades Digitais e Codicologia para aprofundar a compreensão dos dados codicológicos, formular novas hipóteses de pesquisa, ou verificar existentes, e comunicar as suas descobertas de uma forma mais rica. Para melhorar as visualizações e descoberta de conhecimento, tentaremos usar métodos de data mining, como a "Association Rule Mining" e "Formal Concept Analysis"

Digging into Image Data to Answer Authorship Related Questions

An international, multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Sheffield (UoS), UK; Michigan State University (MSU), MI, USA; and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL, USA jointly propose the exploration of authorship across three distinct but in some respects complementary digital dataset collections: 15th-century manuscripts, 17th- and 18th-century maps and 19th- and 20th-century quilts. The datasets, freely available to the investigators, represent very large and diverse collections of digitized scans or photographs in standard image file formats. The US team will consist of members from UIUC (applying to NSF) and MSU (applying to NEH). The UIUC team led by Peter Bajcsy (as US NSF project director), the MSU team led by Dean Rehberger (as US NEH project director), and the UK team led by Peter Ainsworth (as UK JISC project director). The topic of authorship serves as a common question at the intersection of humanities, arts and social sciences research that unites the proposed exploration of image analyses

Appraisal and the Future of Archives in the Digital Era

Discussion of the implications of new technologies, changing public policies, and transformation of culture for how archivists practice and think about appraisal

Bibliography of Sources on Dena’ina and Cook Inlet Anthropology Through 2016

This version 4.3 will be the final version for this bibliography, a project that was begun in 1993 by Greg Dixon. We have intentionally excluded all potential references for the year 2017. This version is about 29 pages longer and has about 211 entries added since the previous version 3.1 of 2012. Aaron Leggett has added over fifty sources many being rare items from newpapers and magazines. Also many corrections and additions were made to entries in earlier versions.I wish to thank Kenaitze Indian Tribe and the “Dena’ina Language Revitalization Project” for their support for several projects during 2017-2018, including this Vers. 4.3. Previous versions have had partial support from "Dena'ina Archiving, Training and Access" project (NSF-OPP 0326805, 2004) and from Lake Clark National Park. I thank Katherine Arndt of Alaska & Polar Regions at UAF for her careful proofreading

Rare books as historical objects: a case study of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library rare books collection

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015Once upon a time all the books in the Arctic were rare books, incomparable treasures to the men and women who carried them around the world. Few of these tangible remnants of the past have managed to survive the ravages of time, preserved in libraries and special collections. This thesis analyzes the over 22,000-item rare book collection of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the largest collection of rare books in the State of Alaska and one of the largest polar regions collections in the world. Content, chronology, authorship, design, and relevance to northern and polar history were a few of the criteria used to evaluate the collection. Twenty items of particular value to the study of Alaskan history were selected and studied in depth. The collection not only reflects the social, political and economic development of Alaska, but also the interests, personalities and expertise of collectors and authors, including works owned or written by key individuals in Alaska history, such as Hieromonk Gideon, Ivan Veniaminov, Ivan Pan’kov, Iakov Netsvietov, Kiril Khlebnikov, Hubert Howe Bancroft, George Davidson, Hudson Stuck, Sheldon Jackson, James Wickersham, Charles Bunnell, Alfred H. Brooks and others. Accident and happenstance also played a role in filling the shelves. There are more mysteries than answers—why some of these particular works resisted hundreds of years of neglect, cold, flood, and fire can never be known. While some books have no marks, no identifiable owners or traceable past, the provenance of others makes them unique. Sometimes the story behind the story is the story.Chapter 1: Rare Books Studies: Methodological Discussion -- 1.1 Historical Research Based on Libraries -- 1.2 Research Statement -- 1.3 Description of the Data – The Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Books Collection -- 1.4 Defining Rare Books and Their Roles in Library Collections -- 1.5 Structure of a Book -- 1.6 Book Materials -- 1.7 Methodological Conclusion -- Chapter 2: The Book in Alaska -- 2.1 Arctic and Antarctic Books as Travelers -- 2.2 Arctic and Antarctic Libraries as Travelers: Ship Publishing, Ship Libraries -- 2.3 First Books in Alaska -- 2.4 Nikolai Rezanov’s View of the Enlightenment -- 2.5 The Kodiak Library -- 2.6 The Sitka Library -- 2.7 The Sitka Museum -- 2.8 Ivan Veniaminov: Language Studies and the Sitka Seminary -- 2.9 Educated “Americans”: The Case of Ivan Pan’kov -- 2.10 RAC Officials and Missionaries: The Necessity of Bilingual Communication -- 2.11 The Educational Backgrounds of Russian American Governors -- 2.12 Conclusion -- Chapter 3: Missionaries, Prospectors, and Collectors -- 3.1 Early American Era: The Battle of School Books -- 3.2 American-Era Missionaries: Books, Reading, Literacy -- 3.3 Gold Rushes in Alaska and the Yukon: Illusion and Ephemera -- 3.4 Missionary Periodicals at the Time of the Alaska Gold Rushes -- 3.5 Periodicals Exchanges, Reading Rooms and Libraries during the Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Century -- 3.6 Collectors of Alaskana and Alaskan Collectors of Rarities -- 3.6.1 The Challenges of Rare Book Collecting in Alaska -- 3.6.2 The Bancroft Library -- 3.6.3 The George Davidson Library -- 3.6.4 The James Wickersham Library -- 3.6.5 The Clarence L. Andrews Library -- 3.6.6 Valerian Lada-Mocarski Library -- 3.6.7 Women in Book Collecting: Laura K. Lada-Mocarski -- 3.7 Conclusion -- Chapter 4: Rare Books as Historical Objects, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Books Collection -- 4.1 History of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library and Its Rare Books Collection -- 4.2 Study of the Rare Books Sample, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Book Collection -- 4.2.1 Books in Russian Published before 1867 -- 4.2.2 Books in English Published before 1867 -- 4.2.3 Books in English Published after 1867 -- 4.2.4 Books in Alaska Native Languages Published after 1867 -- 4.2.5 Nineteenth-Century Missionary Literature -- 4.2.6 Nineteenth-Century Writings by U.S. Government Officials -- 4.2.7 Nineteenth-Century U.S. Exploration Literature -- 4.2.8 Twentieth-Century U.S. Exploration Literature -- 4.2.9 Gold Rush Literature -- 4.2.10 Twentieth-Century Business Literature -- 4.2.11 Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century Periodicals -- 4.2.12 World War II Literature -- 4.2.13 Rare Books Sample: Summary -- Conclusion -- Literature cited

Historical and archaeological investigations at 26Pe2137: American Canyon, Pershing County, Nevada

Previous archaeological investigations concerning overseas Chinese in the United States have focused on artifact assemblages in an effort to determine the level of acculturation of Chinese into dominant Euroamerican cultures. These studies indicate that Chinese tenaciously clung to traditional diets and other aspects of their culture, but adapted some foreign technologies. What can other aspects of their culture, such as architecture and mining technology, tell us? Do ruins of dwellings and mines show adherence to Chinese tradition?;This thesis looks at architecture and mining technology in a Chinese placer mining site to determine levels of acculturation in these areas. The architectural remains in American Canyon suggest adherence to some traditional methods, but the study is inconclusive. The mining technology in American Canyon indicates traditional Chinese mining methods were employed, suggesting that the Chinese imported more mining knowledge than previously thought

Archaeology of the Boston Saloon

Buffalo soldiers and Black cowboys are popular symbols of African American heritage in the West. The archaeological remains of the African American owned Boston Saloon provide yet another example of this legacy in the context of mining boomtowns. The Boston Saloon operated during the 1860s and 1870s in Virginia City, Nevada to serve that community\u27s African Americans. Hollywood portrayals and western historical literature tend to present saloons and mining boomtowns as sordid places populated primarily by European Americans, with Chinese and Native Americans on the margins. Yet African Americans rarely enter this popular imagery. When synthesized with insights from documentary records, the Boston Saloon\u27s archaeological remnants enhance an understanding of the cosmopolitan dimensions of the so-called, wild West

Personality over Policy: A Comparative History of the Founding and Early Development of Four Significant American Manuscript Repositories of Business, Industry, and Technology

This dissertation compares and contrasts the founding and early manuscript collecting activities of four publicly accessible American archival repositories known for their extensive holdings in business, industrial, and technological history: the Baker Library at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts; the Hagley Library and Museum in Wilmington, Delaware; the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.; and the Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan. It uses a historical narrative methodology and case study approach to consider how institutional contexts influenced appraisal and selection activities at these repositories during their formative years 1905-1983. The contexts considered include institutional mission, anticipated users, models inspiring their initial work, partner agencies and networks that supported their collecting activities, and the education and training of their staff. This study analyzes how these contexts affected the manuscript collections available for research today and why other records were ignored, passed over, or destroyed. The first chapter situates the histories of these four case study institutions within the larger contexts of the history of libraries, museums, and archives in the United States, the expansion of interest in business history in the twentieth century, and existing literature about archival practice at institutions which collect manuscript records in business, industry, and technology. Chapters 2 through 5 examine each of the four case study institutions in detail, documenting their establishment, periods of rapid expansion, and ultimate stabilization. Chapter 6 provides comparative commentary and analysis. The study reveals the idiosyncratic nature of manuscript collecting at the four repositories. Acquisition was not guided by pre-established policies or guidelines at any of the four repositories, nor did the repositories have a standardized approach. Instead key individuals at each institution determined the direction of manuscript acquisition, usually in an ad hoc manner. Personality took primacy over written policy. The separate and often disparate approaches that resulted, however, led to the preservation of a much broader range of record formats, business types, and industrial sectors than might otherwise have survived