=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2119/preface
|storemode=property
|title=None
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2119/preface.pdf
|volume=Vol-2119
}}
==None==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2119/preface.pdf
Editorial Introduction to Biographical Data in a Digital World 2017
Serge ter Braake, Antske Fokkens, Ronald Sluijter, Paul Longley Arthur and Eveline Wandl-Vogt
University of Amsterdam, VU university Amsterdam, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands,
Edith Cowan University Australia, Austrian Academy of Sciences
sergeterbraake@gmail.com, antske.fokkens@vu.nl, ronald.sluijter@huygens.knaw.nl,
pwlarthur@gmail.com, eveline.wandl-vogt@oeaw.ac.at
Abstract
On 6 and 7 November 2017 researchers from all over the world gathered in Linz, Austria, for the second conference on Biographical
Data in a Digital World. The conference included 16 oral presentations and 10 poster presentations. These proceedings contain 13 fully
reviewed papers that are based on the presentations given during this event.
1 Introduction munity has formed among people working on biographical
Plutarch (46-120 AD) is considered to be the father of the data, as is evidenced by workshops on biographical data
genre of ‘Biography’. For him writing a biography was al- in Krakow (DH2016, 11 July), Amsterdam (22 May 2017)
most a spiritual journey: ‘For the result is like nothing else and Vienna (published in the Europa baut auf Biographien
than daily living and associating together, when I receive volume 3 ) in between the two conferences. The collabora-
and welcome each subject of my history in turn as my guest, tion has furthermore led to the creation of the DARIAH-
[...] and select from his career what is most important and EU working group ”Analysing and Linking Biographical
most beautiful to know’.1 Data”. Research on ‘Biographical Data’ is still very much
Plutarch wrote about famous men, rulers like Alexander the alive. As long as this is the case we fully intend to con-
Great, and compared them to other rulers. This focus on tinue the Biographical Data in a Digital World conference
‘great men’ remained dominant in biographers’ works, ar- series, which is why we are pleased to announce that the
guably to this very day. Fortunately there have been many organization of the 2019 edition is already on its way.
developments and initiatives that focus on other kinds of
people as well. Scholars started to draw up group portraits,
3 Proceedings
studied history through the eyes of the common person, and The Proceedings of the first Biographical Data in a Dig-
increasingly paid attention to women and minorities. ital World conference followed shortly after the Amster-
The rise of the computer in the twentieth century led to a dam conference. For the 2017 edition we decided to take
further increase of biographies on a wider variety of people. a slightly different approach. Instead of asking for papers
Databases were used to store ‘biographical data’, statisti- before the Conference, we only asked for abstracts. Every-
cal analyses became available through advanced programs, one who had something to say on the topic of biographical
and charts and graphs on groups of people were created data would be welcome to give a (poster) presentation. Af-
more easily. A lot of ‘biographical data’ on a wide vari- ter the conference, an invitation to submit a full paper was
ety of people became more easily available: famous people sent out to everyone who had given a presentation, which
on Wikipedia, genealogical data on private websites, inter- would undergo the regular procedure of a single blind peer
views, online biographical dictionaries, and scanned pri- review process. In the end we accepted 13 papers for the
mary source material such as death registers and marriage 2017 Proceedings.
certificates. Academics worldwide worked on how to mine, We grouped these papers in four categories: (i) Bringing Bi-
navigate, model and analyze all these biographical data, or ographical Data Online (3 papers), (ii) Biographical Data
how to extrapolate even more biographical data from digi- and Historical Research (3 papers), (iii) Group Portraits
tized texts. The Biographical Data in a Digital World con- and Networks (4 papers) and (iv) Visualization and Repre-
ference was created as a platform to showcase, discuss and sentation (3 papers).
publish the latest research on biographical data. We believe these papers provide a rich panorama of re-
search on biographical data: best practices to bring bio-
2 Biographical Data in a Digital World graphical data online; how to use these data to address bi-
The Biographical Data in a Digital World conference has ographical and historical research questions; how to visu-
taken us from Amsterdam (9 April 2015) to Linz (6-7 alize, model and store these data; and finally, more than in
November 2017) for its second edition, organized by a team the previous edition, also how to work together efficiently
from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in the framework on these topics.
of the APIS project.2 Already it seems that a tight com- We continue to hope that these proceedings will inspire
more research on biographical data in a digital world.
1
Plutarch, The Life of Timoleon, introduction, translated by
3
Bernadotte Perrin http://www.newacademicpress.at/gesamtverzeichnis/unkategorisiert/europa-
2
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/de/acdh/projects/apis/ baut-auf-biographien/
i
Program Chairs
Serge ter Braake, University of Amsterdam
Antske Fokkens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Ronald Sluijter, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands
Paul Arthur, Edith Cowan University Australia
Eveline Wandl-Vogt, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Local Organization Committee
Eveline Wandl-Vogt (Chair of Organization), Austrian Academy of Sciences
Barbara Piringer (Conference Secretary 08.2017-)
Caitlin Gura (Conference Secretary -08.2017)
Andreas Bauer, Ars Electronica Center
Michaela Wimplinger, Ars Electronica Center
Program Committee
Andre Blessing, University of Stuttgart
Thierry Declerck, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Saarbrücken
Ichiro Fujinaga, McGill University, Montreal
Lonneke Geerlings, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Eero Hyvönen, Aalto University, Helsinki
Filip, Ilievski, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Anders Ingram, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Marten Düring, Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH)
Sarah Herbe, University of Salzburg
Bärbel Kröger, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
Petri Leskinen, Aalto University, Helsinki
Eetu Mäkelä, Aalto University, Helsinki
Stella Markantonatou, Institute for Language and Speech Processing / Athena RIC, Athens
Katharina Prager, Vienna University
Matthias Schlögl, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna
Pia Sommerauer, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Chantal van Son, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Minna Tamper, Aalto University, Helsinki
Christophe Verbruggen, Ghent University
Joris van Zundert, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, Amsterdam
ii