Encoding emblems


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The project uses a simplified view of an emblem as an intellectual entity. An emblem is viewed as an entity with three distinct parts: A short aphorism from canonical texts of ancient writers or the Bible (motto), an image with meaningful, symbolic and/or allegorical elements (pictura), and an optional verse to be considered in conjunction with motto and pictura (subscriptio).

We assign a persistent identifier to every emblem using UIUC's handle system. For each emblem we provide a transcription of all language variations of the emblem's motto. If the emblem has a subscriptio we record just its language variations. E.g. we provide information that the emblem has a German or Latin subscriptio but not its actual content. The pictura is further classified with ICONCLASS, a specialized classification for art and iconography. With the help of ICONCLASS scholars can access emblems based on the subject represented in their pictura.

Two complementing XML files describe the overall structure of a digital emblem book: The facsimile.xml holds information about the images composing the digital facsimile. It is not a complete TEI document but a fragment with tei:facsimile as the outermost element and a sequence of tei:graphic elements. Each tei:graphic links to an an image of the digital facsimile with a url attribute. An xml:id attribute serves as anchor for location ladders. The facsimile.xml is automatically created at the end of a digitization process.

The second file, tei-struct.xml, encodes the general structure of the emblem book (chapters, sections, headings etc.) and marks up the emblem parts. It includes the facsimile.xml at the appropriate location, i.e. as sibling between the tei:teiHeader and the tei:text element, and references the pages of the digital facsimile by linking to the included tei:graphic elements.

An emblem part is encoded by a tei:div element with a type attribute that indicates the type of the part, a facs attribute pointing to a location in the emblem book, and a n attribute that holds the allocated emblem identifier. One or more tei:index elements contain the ICONCLASS classification of the pictura.

The structural metadata document is keyed in by undergraduates with a structural metadata editor colloquially known as TOC Editor. A structural metadata editor allows describing the structural elements of a digital facsimile, their nesting and extent, as well as page- or structure-related descriptive metadata. It is worth noting that the editor does not provide means to record the required information as such. It only provides free form text fields meant for indexing terms, so that data entry relies on a micro syntax to record the emblem identifier, the type of the emblem part, the language, and the textual content. The editor serializes an XML-based format developed during the project Decentral Digital Incunabula Collection which in turn is transformed into the TEI encoded structural metadata document.

Figure 1. Emblem E018850 encoded in TEI

<div type="section" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00111" n="58">
  <head>
  <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00111" n="58"/>V. Cap.</head>
  <p>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00112" n="59"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00113" n="60"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00114" n="61"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00115" n="62"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00116" n="63"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00117" n="64"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00118" n="65"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00119" n="66"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00120" n="67"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00121" n="68"/>
    <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122"/>
    <index indexName="fsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
      <term type="structure" xml:lang="de" target="#illustration">Illustration</term>
    </index>
  </p>
  <div type="emblem_pictura" n="E018850" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
    <p>
      <index indexName="notation" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
        <term xml:lang="de" key="86(…)" type="ICONCLASS">Sprichwörter, Redewendungen, etc.</term>
        <index indexName="bsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
          <term xml:lang="de" key="86(…)" type="ICONCLASS">Redewendung</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="86(…)" type="ICONCLASS">Sprichwort</term>
        </index>
      </index>
      <index indexName="notation" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
        <term xml:lang="de" key="26C0" type="ICONCLASS">Ripa: Venti</term>
        <index indexName="bsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
          <term xml:lang="de" key="26C0" type="ICONCLASS">Wind</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="26C0" type="ICONCLASS">Eolo</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="26C0" type="ICONCLASS">venti</term>
        </index>
      </index>
      <index indexName="notation" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
        <term xml:lang="de" key="25G3" type="ICONCLASS">Bäume</term>
        <index indexName="bsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
          <term xml:lang="de" key="25G3" type="ICONCLASS">Baum</term>
        </index>
      </index>
      <index indexName="notation" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
        <term xml:lang="de" key="53A1" type="ICONCLASS">Wille; Ripa: Volontà</term>
        <index indexName="bsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
          <term xml:lang="de" key="53A1" type="ICONCLASS">Wille</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="53A1" type="ICONCLASS">volontà</term>
        </index>
      </index>
      <index indexName="notation" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
        <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">…</term>
        <index indexName="bsw" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
          <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">Kraft</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">Stärke</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">Macht</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">fortezza</term>
          <term xml:lang="de" key="54A7" type="ICONCLASS">forza</term>
        </index>
      </index>
    </p>
  </div>
  <div type="emblem_motto" n="E018850" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00122">
    <p xml:lang="de">So muß es mir ergehn, Soll ich sonst fäste Stehn.</p>
  </div>
  <div type="section" facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00123">
    <p>
      <pb facs="#drucke_xb-4362_00123"/>
    </p>
  </div>
</div>

Structural metadata documents are then published as Emblem Schema documents to be used in the Open Emblem Portal. The Emblem Schema was developed to foster the exchange and aggregation of emblem book descriptions (Stäcker 2007). It closely follows Rawles' Spine of Information headings (Rawles 2004) and can be used both, to encode the entire structure of an emblem book (as is done in Utrecht) or to just provide a flat list of contained emblems. At the library the schema is exclusively used for that latter.

The schema defines its own vocabulary to encode emblem information but also imports elements from the Metadata Object Description Standard (MODS) for a bibliographic description of the emblem book, elements from the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) vocabulary for the ICONCLASS information, and elements from the TEI vocabulary as an alternative to MODS and for a structured transcription of an emblem's motto or subscriptio.

The Emblem Schema document is created in two steps. First an XSL transformation creates a list of emblems contained in a structural metadata document and adds a placeholder for the bibliographic description. A PHP script then fetches the bibliographic description from the library catalog and inserts it into the Emblem Schema document. All Emblem Schema documents are available via a web service that conforms to the Open Archive Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).

Figure 2. The same emblem E018850 encoded as Emblem Schema

<emblem:emblem
  globalID="http://hdl.handle.net/10111/EmblemRegistry:E018850"
  xmlns:emblem="http://diglib.hab.de/rules/schema/emblem"
  xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"
  xmlns:skos="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#"
  xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <emblem:motto>
    <emblem:transcription
      xlink:href="http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/xb-4362/start.htm?image=00122"
      xml:lang="de">
      <tei:p xml:lang="de">So muß es mir ergehn, Soll ich sonst fäste Stehn.</tei:p>
    </emblem:transcription>
  </emblem:motto>
  <emblem:pictura
    medium="engraving"
    xlink:href="http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/xb-4362/start.htm?image=00122">
    <emblem:iconclass>
      <skos:notation>86(…)</skos:notation>
      <skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">Sprichwörter, Redewendungen, etc.</skos:prefLabel>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Redewendung</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Sprichwort</emblem:keyword>
    </emblem:iconclass>
    <emblem:iconclass>
      <skos:notation>26C0</skos:notation>
      <skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">Ripa: Venti</skos:prefLabel>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Wind</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Eolo</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">venti</emblem:keyword>
    </emblem:iconclass>
    <emblem:iconclass>
      <skos:notation>25G3</skos:notation>
      <skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">Bäume</skos:prefLabel>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Baum</emblem:keyword>
    </emblem:iconclass>
    <emblem:iconclass>
      <skos:notation>53A1</skos:notation>
      <skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">Wille; Ripa: Volontà</skos:prefLabel>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Wille</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">volontà</emblem:keyword>
    </emblem:iconclass>
    <emblem:iconclass>
      <skos:notation>54A7</skos:notation>
      <skos:prefLabel xml:lang="de">…</skos:prefLabel>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Kraft</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Stärke</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">Macht</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">fortezza</emblem:keyword>
      <emblem:keyword xml:lang="de">forza</emblem:keyword>
    </emblem:iconclass>
  </emblem:pictura>
</emblem:emblem>