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On annotations and markup, interpretations, and representation

 

There is a fundamental difference between the representation and the interpretation of data, most certainly of historical ones. Technologies to implement both are usually discussed as systems of annotations and markup.

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On vagueness and uncertainty in historical data

Historians face a specific challenge: they need to derive conclusions from evidence which is always incomplete, contradictory and anything but precise. Historical information systems and software systems used for their implementation must therefore be based upon a model of information which reflects these properties of the available sources. Continue reading “On vagueness and uncertainty in historical data”

On Information in Historical Sources

1. Information in general

We live in the information age; nevertheless, when you ask what “information” is, the answers you get are so far apart, that it might have a good chance for the least defined term of the decade. So, if one embarks upon a study of what is different between the kind of information one encounters in contemporary documents and that which is used for historical research, one has to give a definition, or at least a description, of how one understands the term.

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A Digital Ivory Tower

This blog shall document and offer for discussion the progress of a personal research project on the epistemic properties of the kind of information the Humanities – and their historical branches in particular – use, and the requirements for information technology, information science and Computer Science these properties imply. It takes its name from the intention to completely ignore all considerations related to current research politics, fashions and funding.