Mnemosyne Project: Digital Library for Rare Works and Forgotten Authors of Silver Age Spain

Overview

Project duration: 2019 - 2022 Date coverage: 1868 - 1939 Website Contact

Digital Cultural Heritage Digital Humanities Linked Data Platform for data aggregation or retrieval Tools for data enrichment Library Ancient Books

Mnemosine, Digital Library of the Other Silver Age Spain, brings together a repertoire of Spanish texts and authors (1868-1939) that have remained in the shadow of the great literary figures. The library aims to be a laboratory in which data can be cross-referenced, texts annotated, digital tools implemented, annotated texts shared, and everything that makes it possible to assess new keys to research and cultural reading.

Mnemosine allows the development of competencies, skills and activities for the reuse of metadata from institutional libraries that facilitate the dynamic reinterpretation of Spanish Digital Literary History. Mnemosine is managed from the Clavy tool, an RIA that serves to import, maintain and edit information between different repositories, allowing the gestation of collections of enriched digital objects.

How does it work?

Mnemosine is an open access digital library that allows the modeling of data from private collections thanks to the Clavy tool. In the generation of the Mnemosyne data model we can distinguish the following phases:

  1. The Data Import Process: the bibliographic information taken from the bibliographic records is taken. Using the logic of connection to MARCXML sources, bibliographic records are imported from, for example, Biblioteca Digital Hispánica or HathiTrust. The Clavy tool supports reconfiguration patterns: sequences of frequently performed editing operations, which can be recovered and reused in new situations.
  2. The Data Adaptation Process: involves collation, cleaning, deletion within the imported data. In this phase, the mapping between the elements of MARC21 and those of the data model defined for Mnemosyne is carried out. It is necessary to develop the specific metadata for the new collection. Clavy allows the inspection of collections through a navigation tree guided by the schemes of the same. The internal support of Clavy is based on an automatic navigation model.
  3. The Data Enrichment Process: the content specialist technician is responsible for nourishing the collections with the specific data of authors and works.
  4. Creation of Collections. Once all this material has been incorporated, the library can be structured into collections: (i) Intellectual women, (ii) Children’s literature, (iii) Madrid in the literature, (iv) Translators in the Silver Age, (v) Dead in the conflict, (vi) Authors in exile, (vii) Proto science fiction, (viii) Literary dialogues, (ix) Kiosk literature, and (x) Dead in exile. These highly specialized collections show, therefore, the potential of the proposed model for the creation and preservation of highly specialized collections in Humanities oriented to research or teaching. Likewise, these collections generate doctoral theses, master’s degree projects and final degree projects.
  5. Basic Support for Linked Queries. Clavy supports arbitrary boolean queries, which are solved on each of the representations of the navigation automaton. This way in Mnemosine you can perform cross-related searches, for example, with dates, gender, sex and collection.
  6. Export of Collections to External Sources. This functionality is carried out in accordance with an ETL (Extract – Transform – Load) approach, which makes it possible to have a set of import (extract components) and export (load components) generic connectors, addressing the specific aspects in the transformation connectors (transform components).

The Mnemosine data model as a digital library of The Other Silver Age must be extensible, structured, standardized and compatible with the principles of the linked data web. Mnemosine has made the modeling of two stable metadata sheets: Model-Author-File and Model-Worksheet. The purpose is to offer the user encyclopedic records and, therefore, specialized and reliable.

 

 

Advantages

The Clavy tool can be very advantageous for both institutional libraries and researchers because it allows:

  1. Select specific data for the investigation.
  2. Import the data with the Clavy tool to a specialized library.
  3. Model metadata with the specific criteria of the investigation.
  4. Create specific collections that serve for research and teaching.
  5. Incorporate new tools that enrich the collections: @Note, geolocation, visualizations 6. Export metadata to other users or institutions
  6. Share enriched metadata with users, groups or institutions

 

Where has it been developed

The Mnemosine library has been developed by the LOEP-UCM Research Group using the Clavy digital tool, created by the ILSA-UCM Research Group:

Research Group The Other Silver Age, Cultural and Digital History (No. 941375) of the Department of Hispanic Literature and Bibliography of the Faculty of Philology of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, created in 2007, is coordinated by Dolores Romero López. The group covers interdisciplinary research lines  that are coherent and complementary in the effort to bring to light authors, genres, themes and styles not sufficiently studied about the aforementioned historical period. Its members come from philology, history and librarianship. Numbers of members: 13

The Research Group Implementation of Language-Driven Software and Applications (No. 962022), coordinated by José Luis Sierra, is an interdisciplinary research group of the School of Informatics, Departments: Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, and Computing Systems and Computer. Number of members:12

 

Finance Information

  1. “Mnemosine: hacia la historia digital de la otra Edad de Plata: producción, almacenamiento, uso y difusión”. IP: Dolores Romero López. Facultad de Filología, UCM. Proyecto I+D+i “Retos Investigación” del Programa Estatal de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación del Gobierno de España. Referencia: RTI2018-095522-B-I00. Duración 01/01/2019-30/09/22. Con el apoyo Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU), la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER). Link: https://www.ucm.es/proyectomnemosine/.

 

  1. “Edición Literaria Electrónica” (eLItE-CM). Organismo convocante: Comunidad de Madrid. Organismo evaluador: Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte. Financiación: Fondo Social Europeo. Coordinadora: María Goicoechea de Jorge. IP Grupo LOEP: Dolores Romero López. Duración 01/01/2016-30/06/2019. Referencia: H215/HUm-34-26. Grupos participantes: LEETHI-Filología-UCM, LOEP-Filología-UCM, ILSA-Informática-UCM, ATLAS-Filología-UNED. Con la colaboración institucional de la Biblioteca Digital Hispánica (BNE), Casa del Lector, MediaLab-Prado. Link: https://www.ucm.es/edicionliterariaelectronica/

 

  1. “Escritorios electrónicos para las literaturas-2” Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. IP: Dolores Romero López. Facultad de Filología, UCM. Duración: 1/1/2013-30/06/2016. Referencia: FFI2012-34666. Numero de investigadores 10. Link: https://www.ucm.es/escritorios-electronicos-literaturas-2/.

Project partners

Other partners

  • Spanish National Library

Public datasets

Mnemosyne Project: Digital Library for Rare Works and Forgotten Authors of Silver Age Spain

Mnemosine, Digital Library of the Other Silver Age Spain, brings together a repertoire of Spanish texts and authors (1868-1939) that have remained in the shadow of the great literary figures. The library aims to be a laboratory in which data can be cross-referenced, texts annotated, digital tools implemented, annotated texts shared, and everything that makes it possible to assess new keys to research and cultural reading.

License: CC 0

Download Read more

With financial support by