Sayeed Choudhury
Associate Dean for Research Data Management
Johns Hopkins University
Jaap Geraerts
Research Associate, Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
University College London
The Archaeology of Reading (AOR) enables the systematic analysis of historical reading practices through the creation of a fully-searchable dataset consisting of tens of thousands manuscript annotations, all available in a digital research environment. Conducting research within the AOR resource has been likened to “falling down the rabbit hole”: dynamic searches reveal new layers of information and enable scholars to traverse the AOR data in different ways. Through such scholarly activities, relationships are established between the various books in the overall AOR corpus and between the multiple annotations within these books. In order to retrace one’s pathways through the data, the complex sequences of related findings need to be captured and stored. Moreover, our users should be able to export and publish their pathways, which are distinct research outputs in their own right. To achieve this ability, the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University are using the RMap service to generate a set of linked data graphs (“DiSCOs”). For each research finding within AOR, defined as an ordered list of actions taken by the user which correspond to a viewer state, we are developing a capability for scholars to record their activities, view the research finding, minimally edit the finding, add metadata, and submit the finding to RMap for creation of relevant DiSCOs. This presentation represents the next stage of the Sheridan Libraries’ ongoing work to develop digital humanities infrastructure.