LFMI Digital Humanities Group
...WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEETS HUMANITIES, CULTURAL HERITAGE, AND CREATIVITY
works ▖digital resources ▖crowdsourcing tools ▖ projects ▖other initiatives
ABOUT
LFMI DH Group team undertakes collaborative research, development and promotion of digital humanities and cultural heritage. It develops and maintains open digital resources, organizes crowdsourcing campaigns, initiates DH events and promotes collaboration between researchers and cultural heritage institutions.
LFMI DH Group was established in 2016 at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art (University of Latvia) to provide a meeting place for researchers with an interest in digital humanities and digital cultural heritage. LFMI DH Group team consists of the staff members from all departments of LFMI and external developers, designers, and communication experts who are called for cooperation depending on needs.
LFMI DH Group is led by Sanita Reinsone
LFMI DH Group core group: Jānis Daugavietis, Eva Eglāja-Kristsone, Sandis Laime
What LFMI DH Group stands for
▚ As open as possible
LFMI DH Group takes into account the EC Guidelines on FAIR Data Management used in Horizon2020 and makes openly available as much data as possible. There are some parts of databases that are restricted due to privacy or ethical reasons, though there are almost no data that cannot be accessed for research purposes. LFMI DH Group takes care also about FAIR Principles of data management and provide continuous efforts to facilitate accessibility, interoperability and re-usability of its data.
▚ Research and cultural heritage should have no (linguistic) borders
Despite LFMI DH Group projects mostly deal with Latvian humanities and cultural heritage data, crossing the language borders is regarded as crucially important in order to make data available to international audience. LFMI DH Group provides a crowdsourcing tool for content translation and interface/metadata translation of its digital resources in English and several other languages. The systems can be easily translated in other languages as the metadata term repository consists of ~500 words and phrases. LFMI DH Group is able to amplify its resources in as much languages as it seems necessary with easy accessible translation tool and by the help of volunteer translators; their work is highly appreciated.
▚ Open Source first
In building its resources and digital tools, LFMI DH Group make use of Open Source software as much as possible. It is seen as a valuable building block for creating custom solutions which allows to save the costs and promote flexibility in technology and functionality.
▚ Participation appreciated
LFMI DH Group sees a great value in participatory approach and highly values a collaboration with members of the public interested in Humanities and cultural heritage data. Interaction and public use of CH materials enliven digital repositories and promote understanding of CH data as common heritage available for everyone, not kept under lock and key. LFMI DH Group integrates crowdsourcing tools in its digital resources, initiates different crowdsourcing campaigns and supports its user community.
▚ Creativity highly valued
Cultural heritage and humanities data can be a source for artistic inspiration and creativity. LFMI DH Group promotes creative thought in designing and planning its digital resources and campaigns. It collaborates with contemporary artists to create visually appealing and exciting design for interface, posters and other publicity materials. LFMI DH Group also encourages society for creative interactions with data (see "Read Aloud" campaigns below).
▚ Communication matters
LFMI DH Group believes (and knows) that cultural heritage data is unique and exciting for many society members, but its value must be helped to appear, thus it attaches great importance to public communication of its resources, services, public calls and other activities. LFMI DH Group actively communicates in social networks in Latvian and English, gladly cooperates with the largest mass media, as well as regional media in Latvia, builds cooperation with governmental and non-governmental organizations and consults communication experts.
What LFMI DH Group does
▚ Digital resources and tools
▖ DIGITAL ARCHIVES OF LATVIAN FOLKLORE
A multilingual and participatory platform for discovering and exploring collections of the Archives of Latvian Folklore and National Oral History Project. Manuscripts, sound and video recordings, photographs and drawings openly accessible to everyone. Participatory tools for crowdsourced transcription, tagging, translation, commenting integrated.
Garamantas.lv administrative panel available for staff and research purposes serves as a joint data repository and a working space for such fields as folklore, oral history, literature, theater, and music studies, as well as biographic studies in general. It offers data processing, importing and cataloging tools, as well as facility for geocoding of metadata and literary/folklore/oral history and other kinds of texts and visualization. The digital archive was launched in the end of 2014, currently it still is its development stage.
Link: garamantas.lv
Project: Krišjānis Barons’ Cabinet of Folk Songs
▖ DATABASE OF LATVIAN LITERATURE
Literatura.lv serves as both an informative portal for current literary events and a database of Latvian literature containing information on persons and organizations involved in the literary process and their works from 16th century to present day. Its parent is garamantas.lv where all literary data is stored, processed and interconnected with data of other research fields. The database is a work in progress. New updates are available each day.
Link: literatura.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis
Funding: State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia
▖PARALLEL CORPUS OF LATVIAN FOLKTALES IN LATVIAN AND GERMAN
Three volumes (3500 texts) of Latvian legends published in wiki based parallel corpus in Latvian and German.
Link: pasakas.lfk.lv
Leading organization: Archives of Latvian Folklore (LFMI)
Partner: Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, University of Latvia
Funding: Baltisch-Deutsches Hochschulkontor and the State Culture Capital Foundation
Implementation period: 2010-2012
▚ Crowdsourcing tools
▖CULTURAL HERITAGE AND HUMANITIES CROWDSOURCING LAB
iesaisties.lv (en. 'get engaged') is a stylized digital engagement laboratory serving as a one-stop-site for different interactions with cultural heritage and humanities data for everyone. It enables access to crowdsourcing tools and citizen humanities resources developed by LFMI DH Group.
Link:
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖CROWDSOURCED TRANSCRIPTION OF FOLKLORE MANUSCRIPTS
The crowdsourcing initiative with a poetic title 'Wizzards of Centenary' (lat. Simtgades burtnieki) was launched in cooperation with Centenary Office Latvia and Radio Latvia in June 2016. Since then more than 71800 folklore manuscript pages have been transcribed by volunteers. The crowdsourcing platform enables access to all manuscripts digitized by the Archives of Latvian Folklore (LFMI). The public is called to devote time for Latvia by transcribing folklore manuscripts thus safeguarding and making digitally available all kind of folklore held by the Archives of Latvian Folklore. Each minute spent by the Wizzards of Centenary within the digital platform is counted up. Currently, the volunteer community has spent more than 10225 hours in transcribing the manuscripts.
The crowdsourcing platform is connected to garamantas.lv. All transcriptions are indexed and reviewed by the editors.
Link: lv100.garamantas.lv
Partners: LV100, Radio Latvia
Project: Krišjānis Barons’ Cabinet of Folk Songs
▖CREATIVE CROWDSOURCING FOR POETRY READING: READ ALOUD #1
READ ALOUD is a series of crowdsourcing campaigns that involve society into creative response by loud reading of both literary and folk poetry or prose.
The first activity in this campaign was the Recite Veidenbaums’ Poetry project (01.09.–31.01.2018), during which participants had the chance to record any of Eduards Veidenbaums’ poems, either at the the special recording booth set up at the National Library of Latvia or through their own computer or mobile device, uploading the recording to the campaign’s website lasi.literatura.lv. During the campaign, the full corpus of Eduards Veidenbaums' poems or 1620 unique readings was recorded. The campaign provided a useful source to explore poetry reading traditions and reception of poetry.
The crowdsourcing tool is connected to garamantas.lv. All recordings are reviewed by the editors before publishing on lasi.literatura.lv.
Link: lasi.literatura.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design, animation), Anete Krūmiņa (Veidenbaums' Studio at NLL)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖CROWDSOURCING ACTIVITY "LET'S READ POEMS!": READ OUT LOUD #2
Second crowdsourcing activity "Let's read poems!" is aimed to children, their parents, as well schools and other education related institutions. From 01.09.2018–31.12.2018 society was encouraged to record its' favorite children's poem in the digital platform berni.literatura.lv or in the recording cabin located in the National Library of Latvia. The goal of activity is to promote the children's reading skills and interest on poetry.
The most popular recorded poem is "Christmas Dwarf". Best interpretations are compiled in the Youtube playlist.
Link: berni.literatura.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖CROWDSOURCING CAMPAIGN "SING WITH THE ARCHIVES": READ OUT LOUD #3
Third crowdsourcing campaign "Sing with the Archives" aim is to popularize the archival sound recordings and explore contemporary interpretations of traditional music. The digital platform http://dziedi.garamantas.lv invites to listen to the archival songs, to add their cover versions to the old recordings and to vote for the new versions.
How did traditional music sound long ago and how does it sound today? The project invites you to learn some new songs from the Digital Archives of Latvian Folklore and sing, record, arrange, compose, and upload your own 'cover versions' to the Archive's audio collection.
Link: dziedi.garamantas.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖THE CONTEMPORARY CALENDAR
Studying the contemporary celebration customs in modern Latvia, the researchers of the Archives of Latvian Folklore turn to the individuals’ personal calendar. Activities are aimed to create an unique data set on contemporary calendaric practices to research changes in celebration of different festivities, as well their importance in people's lives.Participant can mark dates and describe practices performed in his special days. As regards reaching of society activities are performed in close cooperation with one of the main news provides in internet delfi.lv.
Link: kalendars.garamantas.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖ARCHIVES OF LATVIAN FOLKLORE ASKS
Data crowdsourcing is organised in questionnaire (jauta.garamantas.lv) devoted to certain festivities, memorable days and events, etc. Activities are aimed to create a unique data set on contemporary calendaric practices to research changes in celebration of different festivities, as well their importance in people's lives.
Link: kalendars.garamantas.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Project: Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage
▖CROWDSOURCING CAMPAIGN: LANGUAGE TASK FORCE
In February 2016, the Archives of Latvian Folklore in cooperation with the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO launched the first campaign for collaborative manuscript transcription. Its title 'Valodas talka' references ethnographic collective work in the fields. The project was targeted at the school audience and lasted for 71 days, providing a contribution of more than 15,000 transcribed folklore manuscript pages.
The campaign was received with a high response not only among schools but also by the mass media. Due to the high publicity, 120 schools got involved from all across Latvia, and the number of registered users, both from the general public and school children, was almost 1900, out of which 89% actually engaged in transcription.
Link: talka.garamantas.lv
Artist: Krišs Salmanis (web design)
Partners: Latvian National Commission for UNESCO
▚ Other initiatives
▖DIGITALHUMANITIES.LV
DIGITALHUMANITES.LV is a joint initiative by Latvian research and educational institutions that are the most active in the field of digital humanities. It aims to introduce and advance digital humanities in Latvia, to provide information about current events, resources and main actors in the field, as well as to enhance cooperation both on the national and international level.
Link: digitalhumanities.lv
▚ Projects
▖Documenting the Self: Innovation in Knowledge and Interpretative Models of Autobiographical Narratives (eWING)
▖Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage (project leader: Sanita Reinsone. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund, from March 2017 to August 2019)
▖(postdoctoral project, project leader: Sandis Laime. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund, 17.10.2017–16.10.2020)
▖Digital catalog of Latvian charms (postdoctoral project, project leader: Aigars Lielbārdis. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund, 17.10.2017–16.10.2020)
▖Krišjānis Barons’ Cabinet of Folk Songs (project leader: Rita Treija. Funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia, 2015–2019)
▖Connecting Digital Archives of Intangible Cultural Heritage (project leader: Sanita Reinsone. Funded by the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, Seed Money Facility. Implemented from February 2016 to April 2017)
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Last time modified: 01.02.2022 20:29:13
