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Digital Media Technology. Week 1: Introduction. Peter Verhaar. Digital Media Technology. A practical introduction to a number of techniques for the creation, enrichment, storage and dissemination of digital information Combination of theory and practice No prior knowledge is needed.
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Digital Media Technology Week 1: Introduction Peter Verhaar
Digital Media Technology • A practical introduction to a number of techniques for the creation, enrichment, storage and dissemination of digital information • Combination of theory and practice • No prior knowledge is needed
Organisation • Lectures and seminars • Weekly programme: www.bookandbyte.org • Blackboard will not be used extensively
Four main topics • W1-4: Text Encoding (XML, TEI) • W5-6: Stylesheets (XSLT) • W7-9: Webprogamming (PHP) • W10-12: Database theory (SQL, ERM)
Digital Media Technology? • Medium: a technology that can augment human communication • Unmediated communication is limited • Latin word ‘medius’ • Marshall MacLuhan, Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man (1964).
Modality • Cf. C.S. Peirce, Roland Barthes • A particular way in which the information is encoded and/or presented to recipient of the message
Digital information • Digital information is numerical information. Cf. Latin word ‘digitus’E.g. words for ‘digital’ in Romanic languages: Digital Studies or ‘Le champ numérique’ ‘Studium Librorum et Instrumentorum Communicationis Numericorum’ • Digital information is information represented as combinations of 1s and 0s,e.g. ASCII: A = 01100001
0 1 10 11 100 101 111 1000
Digital media technology • Technologies used to improve or to enrich the dynamic process of the transmission of information through digital media • ‘The digital medium’ or ‘The Universal Machine’ (cf. Alan Turing) • Focus is on the publishing industry and on the cultural heritage sector
How to organise vast quantities of digital data? • How to improve the access to these materials?
Why DMT? • MA BDMS: focus on the dynamic process of the transmission of knowledge and information through analogue and electronic media • Book historical perspective: a transition from a print-based knowledge environment to digital environment
Printed medium • Printed book and journal articles: dominant vehicles for the transmission of knowledge • Printed medium shapes the properties of scholarly knowledge • Fixity and stability • Hierachical and linear order • Chief modality is text (next to still images) • Quality and reliability (peer review, citation analysis) • Publishers and libraries have a degree of control over what is published and on what is read
Digital medium • Other modalities besides text: sound recordings, images, video files (e.g. http://www.jove.com/) – digital convergence • Lack of stability, on various levels • Democratisation • Stronger emphasis on scholarly ‘semi-manufactures’
Value of practical work • To study the impact of the digital medium, an understanding is needed of how the digital medium functions • Emphasis in DMT is on understanding general principles • Investigation of new possibilities; innovation
Text encoding • Application in the Book Trade Correspondence Project: Study of correspondence in the archives of De Erven F. Bohn and of A.W. Sijthoff. • Questions: • Social network of publishers • How international was the Dutch Booktrade in the 19C? • Who were Bohn’s and Sijhoff’s competitors? • Which book titles are mentioned in the correspondence?
Example of a transcription • Gentlemen, • I reply to your letter of the 29th Ulto, offering 30 £ for an early copy of my late father's forthcoming novel Kenelm Chellengly. I beg to inform you that I have simultaneously received from another Dutch Firm, precisely the same offer, viz. 30 £ for an early copy of that work, with a view to a Dutch translation of it (…).Your obedt. Servt, • LyttonKnebworth Park Stevenage Herts
Encoded text • Gentlemen, • I reply to your letter of the <date>29th Ulto</date>, offering 30 £ for an early copy of my late father's forthcoming novel <title>Kenelm Chellengly</title>. I beg to inform you that I have simultaneously received from another Dutch Firm, precisely the same offer, viz. 30 £ for an early copy of that work, with a view to a Dutch translation of it (…).Your obedt. Servt, • <persName>Lytton</persName>Knebworth Park <placeName>Stevenage</placeName> Herts
<tei> <text> <salute> Gentlemen,</salute> <body> I reply to your letter of the <date>29th Ulto</date>, offering 30 £ for an early copy of the novel(…) </body> </text> </tei> Validation rules DTD or XML Schema Document Instance