Transcript Slide 1

Connected Histories
Sources for Building British History, 1500-1900
Funded under the JISC eContent Capital Programme for 18 months
Partners:
 Prof. Tim Hitchcock (Univ. of Hertfordshire)
 Prof. Robert Shoemaker (Univ. of Sheffield)
Institute for Historical Research, University of London (Jane Winters)
HRI Digital, Humanities Research Institute (Univ. of Sheffield)
British History Online, including the forthcoming People in Place Database: 250 million words
Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674-1913: 120 million words
Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London: 40 million words
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection from the British Library: 3 million pages
British Library 19th Century Newspapers: 2 million pages
Origins Network: 83 million names
Eighteenth-Century Parliamentary Papers: 566,719 pages
Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835: 105,000 names
`Strype’s Survey of London: 2 million words
Charles Booth Online Archive: 12 maps, 2,500 pages of text
Nineteenth-Century Parliamentary Papers: 200,000 sessional papers
The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera: 1 million items
British Museum Image Collection Database: 141,415 items
Early English Books Online (EEBO): 26,000 texts
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO): 26 million pages
1. Search indexes reside on the Sheffield server
2. The user interface is hosted by the London server
When a user conducts a search:
1. The London server sends the query to the Sheffield server
2. The Sheffield server queries the indexes and returns the
results to the London server
3. The London server renders the results
When a user views a result:
1. The document’s title and result snippet are rendered by the London server
2. The document’s URL takes the user to the full document on the
content provider’s live website
1. Acquire data from providers
2. Technical audit
3. Apply the NLP
4. Evaluate the accuracy of the NLP
5. Generate indexes, snippets and metadata
6. Upload to Sheffield server
Meanwhile:
1. Establish agreed search exchange protocol between Sheffield and London
2. Develop search querying
3. Develop user search interface and other features
4. System testing, load testing etc