Re: Web annotations for physical texts

Thanks for this, Steven. Summarizing my survey of the situation...

 

I was a little surprised to discover this wording in the Web Annotation model spec:

“Resource: An item of interest that MAY be identified by an IRI”

“Web Resource: ...Web Resources MAY be dereferencable via their IRI.”

 

Given those definitions, passages and images in works and specific text instances are potentially annotatable. All that’s required is a standard form for the IRIs. And then, a selector for the Web Annotation model that identifies a page and/or an image on a page.

 

The most applicable thing I’ve found for IRIs is Cite Architecture CTS [1]. Documentation examples for parts of a text are all for ranges of lines. Apparently, one can define a TextInventory schema that defines other ways to refer to chapters, pages, and images, but I could find no specs or examples for that. 

 

There is a further question of what response a system managing those IRIs should provide. All of these issues were tackled recently by a Pelagios-funded working group, “Linked Texts” [2][3]. They made progress I think, but their final report title is “Linked Texts WG: More Questions than Answers.”

 

For the moment, the WHGazetteer project will gather references to pages and images on pages in our own notation, then make some conversion when standards emerge for this process.

 

regards

Karl

 

[1] http://cite-architecture.org/ctsurn/overview/ 

[2] http://commons.pelagios.org/2018/05/the-linked-texts-working-group/ 

[3] http://commons.pelagios.org/2019/03/linked-texts-wg-more-questions-than-answers/

 

 

On 5/20/19, 7:54 AM, "Steven Harms" <sgharms@stevengharms.com> wrote:

 

Karl,

 

As you might have inferred by lack of response, the promise of a standard way to refer to physical books' content (including maps) seems to be unfulfilled as yet.

 

Last Fall I tried to advance this conversation, but ultimately came to the conclusion that this practical application is undocumented and not solidified [0].

 

You might find my general outline of explorations [1] helpful, or the last update when I documented my grinding to a halt [2]. I've attempted another stab

at it, but feel largely like attempting to use the W3C material is not going to be profitable. Many of the ideas of the spec seem good and I plan on

implementing them, but waiting on the W3C models is likely a hinderance to my shipping a useful thing.

 

I hope this helps avoid frustration!

 

Sincerely,

 

Steven Harms

 

[0]: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2018Aug/0061.html

[1]: https://stevengharms.com/research/semweb/

[2]: https://stevengharms.com/research/semweb-topic/2018-11-26-toward-easier-rdf/

 

On Wed, May 8, 2019 at 1:05 PM Karl Grossner <karl@kgeographer.org> wrote:

My challenge is to use the Web Annotation model to annotate a map figure in a print book with authority identifiers for the places it refers to. The book has ISBN and OCLC identifiers and the map figures are numbered, but it isn’t viewable directly over the web. 

 

I take it from this discussion that a standard selector to accomplish this does not exist, so I’m left to design our own. Is that right? Comments, corrections, and suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

Karl

 

-- 

Karl Grossner, PhD

Technical Director, World-Historical Gazetteer

University of Pittsburgh World History Center

http://whgazetteer..org

 

 


 

-- 

Steven G. Harms

PGP: E6052DAF