Open Humanities Awards Open track: Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online (Michael Piotrowski – IEG Leibniz Institute of European History) at Enabling humanities research in the Linked Open Web – DM2E final event (11 December 2014, Navacchio, Italy)

1. Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online
The LOD Remix
Dr.-Ing. Michael Piotrowski
Leibniz Institute for European History
<piotrowski@ieg-mainz.de>
@true_mxp
Pisa, December 11, 2014

2. Background

3. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

4. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

5. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

6. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

7. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

8. Original Project
▶ “Europäische Friedensverträge der Vormoderne – online” (FVV-o)
▶ 2005–2010 funded by the DFG
▶ Documentation, digitization, and publication of 1,800 European
peace treaties from the period 1450–1789 (primarily negotiators’
copies)
▶ FVV-o has collected manuscripts that are scattered over archives all
over Europe (often hard to find)
▶ All facsimiles are annotated with basic metadata; some particularly
important treaties are also available as full-text critical editions
Ü Open-access database at http://ieg-friedensvertraege.de/
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 1/14

9. Database Search Interface
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 2/14

10. Example
Figure: Provisional convention of subsidy between Great Britain, the States
General, and Austria, 1746-08-31
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 3/14

11. Peace Treaties
▶ Peace treaties are an important part of our European cultural
heritage
▶ Essential for research into early modern peacekeeping and
diplomacy, but also for many other historical research questions
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 4/14

12. New Project

13. New Project
▶ Many potential connections from and to treaties:
▶ Places
▶ Partners (signatories)
▶ Persons
▶ Document types
▶ Copies/prints
▶ Related literature
▶ FVV-o is open access, but not machine-processable and reusable
Ü “The goal of the project funded by the DM2E Open Humanities
Award is to publish the treaties metadata as Linked Open Data, and
to evaluate the use of nanopublications as a representation format
for humanities data.”
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 5/14

14. New Project
▶ Many potential connections from and to treaties:
▶ Places
▶ Partners (signatories)
▶ Persons
▶ Document types
▶ Copies/prints
▶ Related literature
▶ FVV-o is open access, but not machine-processable and reusable
Ü “The goal of the project funded by the DM2E Open Humanities
Award is to publish the treaties metadata as Linked Open Data, and
to evaluate the use of nanopublications as a representation format
for humanities data.”
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 5/14

15. New Project
▶ Many potential connections from and to treaties:
▶ Places
▶ Partners (signatories)
▶ Persons
▶ Document types
▶ Copies/prints
▶ Related literature
▶ FVV-o is open access, but not machine-processable and reusable
Ü “The goal of the project funded by the DM2E Open Humanities
Award is to publish the treaties metadata as Linked Open Data, and
to evaluate the use of nanopublications as a representation format
for humanities data.”
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 5/14

16. New Project
▶ Many potential connections from and to treaties:
▶ Places
▶ Partners (signatories)
▶ Persons
▶ Document types
▶ Copies/prints
▶ Related literature
▶ FVV-o is open access, but not machine-processable and reusable
Ü “The goal of the project funded by the DM2E Open Humanities
Award is to publish the treaties metadata as Linked Open Data, and
to evaluate the use of nanopublications as a representation format
for humanities data.”
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 5/14

17. Conversion
▶ Original database is MySQL with custom PHP front end
▶ No documentation
▶ “Creative” solutions, e.g., for multi-valued fields
‘partners‘ varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”
’37,46,253’
▶ Much information is contained in unstructured “comment” fields
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 6/14

18. Conversion
▶ Original database is MySQL with custom PHP front end
▶ No documentation
▶ “Creative” solutions, e.g., for multi-valued fields
‘partners‘ varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”
’37,46,253’
▶ Much information is contained in unstructured “comment” fields
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 6/14

19. Conversion
▶ Original database is MySQL with custom PHP front end
▶ No documentation
▶ “Creative” solutions, e.g., for multi-valued fields
‘partners‘ varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”
’37,46,253’
▶ Much information is contained in unstructured “comment” fields
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 6/14

20. Current State
▶ Data has been converted to RDF (DM2E model)
▶ 3 main classes:
▶ Treaties (dm2e:Manuscript)
▶ Partners (edm:Agent)
▶ Locations (edm:Place)
▶ Further properties:
▶ dc:title for the treaty titles
▶ dc:date for the treaty date
▶ edm:happenedAt for linking to the location
▶ rdfs:label for the names of partners and locations
▶ skos:narrower and skos:broader for modeling the hierarchy of
partners
▶ dc:contributor for linking partners to treaties
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 7/14

21. Current State
▶ Data has been converted to RDF (DM2E model)
▶ 3 main classes:
▶ Treaties (dm2e:Manuscript)
▶ Partners (edm:Agent)
▶ Locations (edm:Place)
▶ Further properties:
▶ dc:title for the treaty titles
▶ dc:date for the treaty date
▶ edm:happenedAt for linking to the location
▶ rdfs:label for the names of partners and locations
▶ skos:narrower and skos:broader for modeling the hierarchy of
partners
▶ dc:contributor for linking partners to treaties
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 7/14

22. Current State
▶ Data has been converted to RDF (DM2E model)
▶ 3 main classes:
▶ Treaties (dm2e:Manuscript)
▶ Partners (edm:Agent)
▶ Locations (edm:Place)
▶ Further properties:
▶ dc:title for the treaty titles
▶ dc:date for the treaty date
▶ edm:happenedAt for linking to the location
▶ rdfs:label for the names of partners and locations
▶ skos:narrower and skos:broader for modeling the hierarchy of
partners
▶ dc:contributor for linking partners to treaties
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 7/14

23. Current State
▶ Data has been converted to RDF (DM2E model)
▶ 3 main classes:
▶ Treaties (dm2e:Manuscript)
▶ Partners (edm:Agent)
▶ Locations (edm:Place)
▶ Further properties:
▶ dc:title for the treaty titles
▶ dc:date for the treaty date
▶ edm:happenedAt for linking to the location
▶ rdfs:label for the names of partners and locations
▶ skos:narrower and skos:broader for modeling the hierarchy of
partners
▶ dc:contributor for linking partners to treaties
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 7/14

24. Current State
✔ Treaties (as “works” in the sense of FRBR)
✔ Places
✔ Partners (signatories)
✘ Persons
✔ Document types
✘ Copies/prints (“manifestations”)
✘ Related literature
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 8/14

25. Problems
▶ Identifying signatories is non-trivial
▶ Data from comment fields (copies, prints, related literature) can’t
be extracted automatically
▶ We don’t have the name of the signees (= negotiators)
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 9/14

26. Problems
▶ Identifying signatories is non-trivial
▶ Data from comment fields (copies, prints, related literature) can’t
be extracted automatically
▶ We don’t have the name of the signees (= negotiators)
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 9/14

27. Problems
▶ Identifying signatories is non-trivial
▶ Data from comment fields (copies, prints, related literature) can’t
be extracted automatically
▶ We don’t have the name of the signees (= negotiators)
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 9/14

28. A Pleasant Surprise
Project “Übersetzungsleistungen von Diplomatie und Medien im
vormodernen Friedensprozess. Europa 1450–1789” (June 2009–May
2012, BMBF)
▶ Documented all negotiators
▶ Documented the languages used in the treaties
Ü We’re trying to obtain and integrate this data
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 10/14

29. A Pleasant Surprise
Project “Übersetzungsleistungen von Diplomatie und Medien im
vormodernen Friedensprozess. Europa 1450–1789” (June 2009–May
2012, BMBF)
▶ Documented all negotiators
▶ Documented the languages used in the treaties
Ü We’re trying to obtain and integrate this data
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 10/14

30. A Pleasant Surprise
Project “Übersetzungsleistungen von Diplomatie und Medien im
vormodernen Friedensprozess. Europa 1450–1789” (June 2009–May
2012, BMBF)
▶ Documented all negotiators
▶ Documented the languages used in the treaties
Ü We’re trying to obtain and integrate this data
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 10/14

31. A Pleasant Surprise
Project “Übersetzungsleistungen von Diplomatie und Medien im
vormodernen Friedensprozess. Europa 1450–1789” (June 2009–May
2012, BMBF)
▶ Documented all negotiators
▶ Documented the languages used in the treaties
Ü We’re trying to obtain and integrate this data
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 10/14

32. To Do
▶ Complete linking (locations, powers)
▶ Try to obtain, add, and link data on negotiators
▶ Publish
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 11/14

33. Summary & Outlook

34. Summary
▶ Open Humanities Award has allowed us to take a valuable resource
for the humanities …
▶ … and turn it into a valuable resource for the digital humanities
▶ Work will continue beyond December 31: Important impetus for
further development as well as for related work on controlled
vocabularies and authority files for historical research
(ÚDARIAH-DE)
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 12/14

35. Thank You
▶ DM2E for the Open Humanities Award
▶ Magnus Pfeffer & colleagues (HDM Stuttgart) for their hard work
Piotrowski 2014-12-11 Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online 13/14

36. Early Modern European Peace Treaties Online
The LOD Remix
Dr.-Ing. Michael Piotrowski
Leibniz Institute for European History
<piotrowski@ieg-mainz.de>
@true_mxp
Pisa, December 11, 2014