Building an AI-tool to facilitate the integration, accessibility, and usability of heterogeneous cultural heritage data on medieval manuscripts.

Introduction

Data on our cultural heritage hold enormous potential for Europe’s economic growth, for the construction of a more inclusive narrative of its past, and for the future collective identity of its citizens. The biggest obstacle to unlocking that potential is the current lack of integration and interoperability among the countless datasets describing the holdings of European heritage institutions.

Project Overview

ManuscriptAI will help remove that obstacle for the data on Europe’s medieval written heritage, specifically manuscripts. Premodern handwritten books are a pivotal category of our heritage, yet they are currently underrepresented in large research infrastructures and their catalog data is locked in digital silos.

Methodology

ManuscriptAI will employ machine learning algorithms to construct a model capable of facilitating the automatic integration of distinct data sources describing medieval manuscripts, under a predefined set of machine-understandable vocabulary terms.

Accessibility and Testing

The model will be made accessible through a human engagement interface and tested during a pilot in a real-world setting.

Objectives

The project will fill two important desiderata:

1. A user-friendly AI tool to allow heritage professionals to convert their metadata on manuscripts to Linked Open Data.
2. A dedicated ontology for the description of medieval manuscripts to complete CIDOC-CRM extensions for the cultural heritage domain.

Consortium and Support

The project, building on the achievements of the ERC-2018-stg PASSIM, is supported by a strong consortium of domain experts, heritage professionals and institutes, and (inter)national research infrastructures.

Impact

ManuscriptAI will advance the EU’s agenda for digital heritage. The tool will help democratise datafication, making Linked Open Data accessible to small heritage institutions and actively involving them in its development.

Conclusion

This integration tool for data on medieval manuscripts will be a huge step forward for the digital preservation and usability of Europe’s unique handwritten heritage.