Finally, we are providing the write-up of the first DHP workshop held in Vienna on Feb 13/14, 2020.

Digital Habsburg Platform, I: “Verwaltung”

Motivation

The administrative history of the Habsburg Monarchy has recently been documented in a seminal handbook (see below). Moreover, administrative offices are entities that occur in several digital projects dealing with early modern Central Europe. Against this backdrop, the workshop fostered dialogue about the compatibility of these entities and thus about the potential interoperability of the data.

Date and venue

University of Vienna, 13/14 Feb 2020

Organizers

Stephan Kurz (IHB), Daniel Schopper (ACDH-CH), Thomas Wallnig (IfG/IfÖG)

Participating projects:

• Austria Judaica (Grilj, Hödl)
• Emperor’s Desk (Bekesi, Enderlin)
• Medieval Vienna (Frey, Grünwald, Lutter)
• Verwaltungsgeschichte (Mat’a)

Participating DH experts:

Andorfer, Kurz, Resch, Schlögl, Schopper, Vogeler

Schedule:

13 Feb, 13:00–14:00: plenary.
13 Feb, 14:00–17:00: break-out groups (1: AJ & MV; 2: ED & VWG).
14 Feb, 09:00–12:00: break-out groups (1: AJ & MV; 2: ED & VWG).
14 Feb, 14:00–16:00: plenary (debriefing).

Links & tools discussed & used:

• https://apis-hub.acdh-dev.oeaw.ac.at/
• https://actaborussica.bbaw.de/organigramme/1861_1888/organigramm1861.xql
• https://vocabseditor.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/
• Omnipot (ACDH-CH/ not yet publicly online)

Output / issues left open

1. It can be difficult to distinguish between “professions” and “offices”. In the first case, it can also be difficult to disambiguate (“Fleischhacker” vs. “Fleischhauer”). If one begins with flat lists (just collecting the source terms/labels), the problem becomes how to group them, i.e. relate them to abstract categories that would nonetheless contribute to better finding aids. Can the addition of such abstract (and potentially overlapping) categories—eg. “financial”, “military” administration—be useful as a means of communication even if they are not entirely accurate at the source level? In some cases (“Händler”), related categories (“Wein”) can make sense.

2. Collection of data and labels from printed source indices in excel sheets (examples: “Graf”, “Kabinettssekretär”, “Salinenkanzleikonzipist”). Discussion of the difficulty in distinguishing between office (Amt) and role (Funktion), e.g. with “Geheimer Rat”. Given the historical and geographical heterogeneity, does collecting the names of “deputies” (“Abgeordnete”) mean collecting data or interpreting? In some cases, it can be relatively easy to work with SKOS (e.g. “Ackerbauminister”), while in others it will be difficult (“Banus of Croatia”).

Plenary: A first step could be to create and publish with ID and license (cf. https://www.zenodo.org/) individual projects’ disambiguated flat lists of office names (disambiguated would mean that they would distinguish, for example, between a “Rentmeister” and a “Hubmeister”). Such flat lists are now present and documented in a repository at https://github.com/DigitalHabsburgPlatform/example-data.

Any further development would have to be a group process including (a) formalization of the various types of relations (SKOS: skos:exactMatch / skos:closeMatch / skos:broadMatch / skos:relatedMatch); and (b) introduction of temporal and spatial distinctions (scope note). It would then become clearer whether coherent models can be built on an overarching level and/or only around thematic clusters (e.g. Habsburg Monarchy around 1700 vs. 1900).

Institutionally, there was consensus that the group should carry on and consolidate (mailing list, slack, website, future workshops). It can be helpful especially for new/small projects to obtain some orientation and tips regarding standardization.

A mid-term goal could be datasets complementing GND (or enhancing existing GND datasets). Questions of data quality and review have yet to be addressed.