Linking Text and Image with SVG

Annotation and linking (or referring) have been described as "scholarly primitives", basic methods used in scholarly research and publication of all kinds. The online publication of manuscript images is one basic use case where the need for linking and annotation is very clear. High resolution images are of great use to scholars and transcriptions of texts provide for search and browsing, so the ideal method for the digital publication of manuscript works is the presentation of page images plus a transcription of the text therein. This has become a standard method, but leaves open the questions of how deeply the linkages can be done and how best to handle the annotation of sections of the image. This paper presents a new method (named img2xml) for connecting text and image using an XML-based tracing of the text on the page image. The tracing method was developed as part of a series of experiments in text and image linking beginning in the summer of 2008 and will continue under a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It employs Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to represent the text in an image of a manuscript page in a referenceable form and enables linking and annotation of the page image in a variety of ways. The paper goes on to discuss the scholarly requirements for tools that will be developed around the tracing method, and explores some of the issues raised by the img2xml method

Exercise “Musk Ox”: Asserting Sovereignty “North of 60”

The Second World War was over and the Canadian armed forces were being reduced rapidly. The first chilly blasts of the Cold War had not yet penetrated to the consciousness of most Canadians. What role could the forces play in the postwar world? The most obvious answer was to revert to those interwar operations that had most directly benefited the nation—aerial surveys, northern communications, limited engineering projects. New tasks had evolved; aerial search and rescue was an example. The Canadian government was aware that it had neglected the north during the war; the American presence in the Alaska Highway, CANOL, and aerial delivery routes via the Arctic had been more prominent than that of the nominal owners of the region. This was continuing even into the postwar period; early in 1946 the USS Midway was cruising in the Labrador Sea and Davis Strait areas, experiencing Arctic flying conditions and noting the effects of sub-zero temperatures on carrier-borne aircraft. “Musk Ox,” publicly described as a test of military equipment and capabilities in the north, was a gesture to reassert Canadian sovereignty “north of 60.