=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3019/p44
|storemode=property
|title=The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research: The Case Study of the Giuseppe Raimondi Archive
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3019/LinkedArchives_2021_paper_3.pdf
|volume=Vol-3019
|authors=Francesca Giovannetti,Francesca Tomasi
}}
==The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research: The Case Study of the Giuseppe Raimondi Archive==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3019/LinkedArchives_2021_paper_3.pdf
The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for
Textual Research: The Case Study of the
Giuseppe Raimondi Archive?
Francesca Giovannetti1[0000 0001 6007 9118] and
Francesca Tomasi2[0000 0002 6631 8607]
1
Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies, University of Bologna, Italy
francesc.giovannett6@unibo.it
2
Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies, University of Bologna, Italy
francesca.tomasi@unibo.it
Abstract. This paper makes new suggestions for rethinking archival
finding aids by means of linked open data. It does so by outlining some
features of a conceptual model for writers’ archives developed for the Dig-
ital Library of the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies
of the University of Bologna.
The model, extending CIDOC-CRM/LRMoo, allows for the representa-
tion of complex collections of interrelationships between heterogeneous
archival entities, especially texts. It also adopts named graphs as a way
of enriching the finding aid with additional and possibly competing in-
terpretations by researchers.
Through the case study of Giuseppe Raimondi’s archive, the paper sug-
gests how the adoption of linked open data can broaden the role of the
digital finding aid to serve as a platform for archival and textual research.
Keywords: Digital Finding Aid · Linked Open Data · Writers’ Archives.
1 Introduction
In his Introduction to Archival Science, Thomassen describes research on archives
as “research on relations”[1]. The same point can be made about textual schol-
arship: creating a scholarly edition requires extensive research within archives to
establish links between texts and documents. This paper considers how the role
of the archival finding aid in the context of textual research can be rethought
and expanded by means of linked open data and semantic web technologies.
Knowledge graphs have only recently been gathering attention as a way of
publishing archives on the web. Compared to that of tree hierarchies, the data
structure of knowledge graphs supports the creation of representations that can
express higher orders of archival complexity. The descriptive potential of knowl-
edge graphs is grounded on the semantic web architecture, which adopts the
?
Section 1 is by F. Tomasi and Section 2 is by F. Giovannetti. Both authors con-
tributed to Section 3.
Copyright 2021 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0
International (CC BY 4.0).
2 F. Giovannetti and F. Tomasi
Resource Description Framework (RDF) as its base, interoperable data model
to convey information through semantic statements taking the form of subject-
predicate-object expressions (see [2]).
The introduction of knowledge graphs into archival practice, however, does
not merely provide archival practitioners with new technological tools but also
challenges traditional approaches to archival representation both methodologi-
cally and conceptually. From a methodological point of view, the use of knowl-
edge graphs as a method for archival representation prompts us to rethink the
structure and organization of the archive towards a shift from neat hierarchies of
records to fluid networks of logical interdependencies that can be arranged and
rearranged into new representations. The semantic range of such interdependen-
cies is virtually infinite, thanks to the possibility of combining predicates from
di↵erent ontologies within a single graph and defining new predicates as needed.
From a conceptual point of view, reconfiguring the finding aid as a knowl-
edge graph broadens its role in the context of textual research by allowing mul-
tiple interpretations by archivists and researchers to be incorporated into the
archival representation as complex collections of interrelationships between het-
erogeneous entities (see [3]).
Our argument stems from a project undertaken by the Department of Clas-
sical Philology and Italian Studies (FICLIT)[4] and the Digital Humanities Ad-
vanced Research Centre (/DH.arc)[5] of the University of Bologna to expose
as linked open data a selection of twentieth-century writers and intellectuals’
archives.3 The Giuseppe Raimondi Archive was chosen as a pilot, representative
case study for the project.
Giuseppe Raimondi (Bologna, 1898-1985) was an Italian writer. In the im-
mediate aftermath of WWI, in 1918, he founded the literary journal La Rac-
colta, which published papers by European authors such as Vincenzo Cardarelli,
Giuseppe Ungaretti, Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars, many of whom
Raimondi met for the first time during the war. The archive, held at FICLIT,
provides an example of what we might call ‘multiple sedimentation’: it con-
tains heterogeneous material, both as to what regards carriers (notebooks, loose
papers, albums, newspaper clippings, printed volumes) and document types (let-
ters, drafts, notes, newspaper and journal articles, illustrated postcards, draw-
ings, photographs).
Research on the archive have highlighted that the records it comprises are
highly interconnected with one another as well as with material from other col-
lections, and that the nature of such interrelations is heterogeneous. Consider,
for example, a manuscript notebook, a newspaper article and a printed volume
containing di↵erent versions of a text, possibly with internal corrections; these
documents and their relationships span across various cultural heritage areas
such as library, archival, museum and textual studies.4
3
See [6] for the list of personal archives held at FICLIT.
4
For an example of a subsequent scholarly reconstruction of interrelationships between
heterogeneous archival documents in Giuseppe Raimondi’s archive see [7].
The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research 3
Experiments with CIDOC CRM as a base ontology for representing archival
information have already proved fruitful for demonstrating how classes and prop-
erties from CIDOC CRM could also be leveraged for the archival domain (see
[8], [9], and [10]). However, none of these experiments have dealt specifically
with the representation of the life cycle of writers’ archives, and especially of the
role of subsequent users-researchers as creators of additional interconnections
between texts and documents. In addition, archival description practices to date
have tended to focus on the representation of record sets rather than individual
documents and texts.5 On the other hand, most existing digital scholarly edi-
tions prioritize a document-centred view of texts that uses TEI/XML markup
[15] over LOD-based representations of textual phenomena and do not address
the representation of the archival dimension in which texts participate.6
The primary goal of our project is to define a conceptual model that allows for
the granular representation of complex interrelationships between heterogeneous
documents and texts, such as those described above, within the finding aid.
The model, extending CIDOC-CRM and LRMoo (formerly FRBRoo), leverages
named graphs to enrich the finding aid with multiple and possibly competing
readings by archivists and researchers.7 The section that follows presents selected
features of the model through a practical example focusing on the representation
of intertextual relationships as reconstructed by subsequent users-researchers.
2 Textual Research in the Finding Aid: An Example
Una forca per il poeta François Villon / [Giuseppe Raimondi]. - 1976. - 1
quaderno (7 p. ms., di cui alcune numerate irregolarmente, su 10 c.) ; 21 cm.
((In cop., di altra mano, anche: (Gelo invernale e nostalgia di legna accesa)
Il giorno 7.6.76; I dattiloscritti sono inseriti ne “I tetti sulla città”; a c. [3v]:
24.5.1976; a c. [5v]: 3 luglio 1976. - Contiene anche: A proposito di tegole, di
tetti e di fantasmi. – Ms.8
This archival note, taken from the existing finding aid of the Giuseppe Raimondi
Archive, describes one of Raimondi’s manuscript notebooks.9 The note reports
four distinct titles: Una forca per il poeta François Villon (from now on T1),
Gelo invernale e nostalgia di legna accesa (T2), I tetti sulla città (T3) and A
proposito di tegole, di tetti e di fantasmi (T4). However, the note does not specify
which texts are actually contained in the notebook nor the relationships between
them, to the detriment of users and researchers. The description also includes
three full dates, but they are not explicitly attributed to the corresponding texts.
Actually, the notebook only contains two of the mentioned texts, T1 (dated
24 May 1976) and T4 (3 July 1976). Both became part of T3, a collection of
5
Refer to [11] for an in-depth discussion of the topic.
6
One exception is the Paolo Bufalini’s Notebook project, which describes intratextual
relationships in LOD [12].
7
On the transition from FRBRoo to LRMoo see [13].
8
University of Bologna, BFICLIT, FR.A, QUADERNI.1 1976 03.
9
The existing finding aid of Giuseppe Raimondi’s archive dates back to March 1993.
4 F. Giovannetti and F. Tomasi
works by Giuseppe Raimondi, which was first published in September 1977. On
the other hand, T2 is a variant version of T1 that was published as a newspaper
article just a month after the creation of T1 (7 June 1976). The archive contains
Giuseppe Raimondi’s copy of T3. Furthermore, FICLIT holds two additional
copies of the same book in the personal archives of Clemente Mazzotta and
Ezio Raimondi, one of which features noteworthy manuscript annotations. How
can this scenario, which subsequent research on the archive reconstructed, be
represented within the finding aid?
2.1 The Archivist’s Base Description of the Notebook
As anticipated above, our model, of which we only provide a brief account,
adopts CIDOC-CRM as a basis for representing archival documents and order.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 show a graphical representation of the archivist’s base
description of the notebook (the graph is split into two parts for better reading).
The following prefixes apply to all figures:
@base .
@prefix fdlo: .
@prefix crm: .
@prefix lrmoo: .
@prefix pro: .
@prefix rdf: .
@prefix np: .
CIDOC-CRM is the best candidate for integrating di↵erent conceptualiza-
tions into one model because it is event-based and already compatible with
LRMoo. The notebook is modelled as an instance of E22 Human-Made Object
that carries an F2 Expression incorporating two texts, T1 and T4 (Fig. 1, cen-
tre). Because it contains two distinct texts, the notebook is categorised both as
a ‘notebook’ and as an archival ‘file’ through the P2 has type property (Fig. 1,
top left). The notebook forms part of the archival unit, “QUADERNI.1 1976”,
which is also an instance of E22.
One crucial feature of our model is that each physical document is tied to
a IIIF manifest [14] (an instance of E73 Information Object) pointing to large-
scale, zoomable facsimiles of the object. In a similar way, each expression is
linked to a transcription, which can be encoded in TEI/XML (Fig. 1, bottom
left). The direct linking of facsimiles and transcriptions to the archival knowledge
base supports further research and can act as a basis for the production of new
digital scholarly editions of our texts.10
The creation of the notebook is modelled as an instance of F28 Expression
Creation, linked to a specific date and technique (handwriting). The role of
author is assigned to Giuseppe Raimondi using the Publishing Role Ontology
(PRO) model, which allows for the reification of roles in such a way that each
role is always linked to a specific context [17]. In our case, Raimondi holds the
10
On the boundary between digital archive and edition see [16].
The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research 5
role of author in the context of the creation of the notebook. The role of author,
the person holding such a role and the created document are linked together
using the Role In Time class (Fig. 1, bottom right). Continuing Figure 1, Figure
2 shows how the Expression Creation activity is divided into two sub-activities,
one for each text, each linked to a specific date, via the P9 consists of property
(Fig. 2, top left).
The E13 Attribute Assignment class is used to model authorship attribu-
tion. The attribute assigned is the Role In Time, and the assignee is Giuseppe
Raimondi. The agent responsible for the attribution (in this case an institution
rather than an individual) and the time of attribution are linked to the instance
of E13 (Fig. 1, bottom right).
2.2 Enhancing the Base Description with Subsequent
Interpretations by Researchers
Among the objectives of our model is to support the incorporation of subse-
quent scholarly interpretations within the finding aid. Figure 3 shows a graph
of statements, modelled according to LRMoo, that reconstructs the relation-
ships between T1, T2 and T3 as established by a researcher analysing Giuseppe
Raimondi’s literary production. All three texts are modelled as instances of F2
Expression realizing the same work. The texts are linked to their carriers: T1
is carried by the notebook, while T3 is carried by multiple printed volumes
available in the personal archives of Giuseppe Raimondi, Ezio Raimondi and
Clemente Mazzotta. Because the volumes are from di↵erent archival collections,
connecting them within the finding aid represents a fundamental step towards
dismantling archival data siloes (see [18]).
Additional relationships inferred by the reasoner on the basis of our ontology
are displayed in blue. These relationships, FDLP2 has variant expression and
FDLP3 is related by expression to, automatically link together the alternate ver-
sions of a text and the physical documents containing such versions to facilitate
search and retrieval.
The graph only shows a subset of possible text-to-text connections. Connec-
tions at a deeper level are also possible, such as fragment-to-fragment connec-
tions describing authorial changes from one version to another (fragments can
be modelled as instances of E90 Symbolic Object belonging to an expression,
while ontologies such as the Critical Apparatus Ontology (CAO) provide use-
ful properties for the representation of corrections) [19]. For example one could
represent authorial changes to the title, from the initial Gelo invernale e nostal-
gia di legna accesa to the final Una forca per il poeta François Villon, through
the various intermediate stages. Using IIIF, it is also possible to establish links
between circumscribed portions of the facsimiles and manuscript fragments.
2.3 Tying Each Set of Assertions to Their Provenance
In order to accommodate multiple perspectives in the finding aid, all collections
of statements (in the case discussed above, there are two distinct graphs, the
6 F. Giovannetti and F. Tomasi
archivist’s and the researcher’s) must be associated with provenance information.
This allows the archival knowledge base to describe not only the archive but
also the process of archival representation and to integrate more collections of
statements over time.
Provenance information is modelled according to the Nanopublication frame-
work [20]. The example below shows the basic structure of the nanopublication
encapsulating the researcher’s interpretation from Figure 3. It is composed of
four graphs: 1. the graph of assertions being made by the researcher; 2. a graph
describing the provenance of the assertions, 3. a graph describing the provenance
of the publication itself; 4. the top graph combining the previous three graphs
into a single nanopublication:
# Graph 1: the assertions being made.
:assertion-02 {
# The researcher’s reconstruction of the relationships between the
texts (Fig. 2). }
# Graph 2: the provenance of the assertions.
:provenance-02 {
:assertion-02 prov:generatedAtTime "2021-05-15T17:15:00Z"^^xsd:date ;
prov:wasAttributedTo . }
# Graph 3: the provenance of the nanopublication itself.
:pubinfo-02 {
:nanopub-02 prov:generatedAtTime "2021-05-15T17:15:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasAttributedTo . }
# Graph 4: the nanopublication and its components.
:head-02 {
:nanopub-02 a np:Nanopublication ;
np:hasAssertion :assertion-02 ;
np:hasProvenance :provenance-02 ;
np:hasPublicationInfo :pubinfo-02 . }
3 Concluding Remarks
Even in the digital environment, the finding aid remains a key tool for discovery
and access. Its reconfiguration as an archival knowledge base has the potential
to transform the finding aid into an expanding research platform where complex
interrelationships between heterogeneous entities can be explicitly represented.
The primary goal of the project described in this paper is to define a con-
ceptual model for representing writers’ archives that allow for the expression of
such interrelationships, with a special focus on connecting texts. Thanks to the
use of named graphs, and nanopublications in particular, the model supports
The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research 7
the ongoing enrichment of the digital finding aid with subsequent scholarly re-
constructions of the context(s) characterizing the records.
Using a practical example from the Giuseppe Raimondi Archive, this con-
tribution attempted to show how the use of linked open data, in conjunction
with event-based and provenance-centric descriptions, can broaden the role of
the digital finding aid and the archive it represents, transforming it into an
ever-expanding platform for archival and textual research.
Fig. 1. The archivist’s base description of the notebook.
8 F. Giovannetti and F. Tomasi
Fig. 2. The archivist’s base description of the notebook (continued).
Fig. 3. The researcher’s subsequent reconstruction of the interrelationships between
the texts.
The Linked Finding Aid as a Platform for Textual Research 9
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