Absalon.nu - an interactive history of Copenhagen on the net
Johan Møhlenfeldt Jensen, Museum of Copenhagen, Denmark
http://www.absalon.nu
In October 2006, the Museum, Archives and Libraries of Copenhagen launched a presentation of the history of Copenhagen on the Web, called Absalon.nu after the alleged founder of Copenhagen.
One of the scientific aims of absalon.nu has been to examine the extent to which already existing data could be mined in order to create the core of a system for presentation on the web for the general public.
Large sums are invested in procuring the data in the exiting databases of the three institutions and it is therefore of obvious interest to be able to exploit this investment in the best possible way. Although it is a commonplace that data made for internal purposes are seldom suited for use by the general public it is on the other hand the same types of information that are interesting in both cases. The crucial question is therefore how and to which extent these data can be used in a meaningful and user friendly way, and what type of transformation, ad additions are necessary for their use in a broader context.
Apart from more ordinary additions to data Absalon.nu has utilized two strategies. First of all graphically: We intend to display related information using mindmaps and other graphical tools. In this way users will get information on the classifications etc. that are normally presupposed in users of the internal databases. Secondly Absalon.nu intends to create parts of these relationships, through automated linguistic analysis of the conternt, taking into account not only the individual lemma (root-form of word) but also the meaning of the sentences based on a grammatical analysis.
After a brief presentation of absalon.nu, this demonstration addresses the problems mentioned above based on the concrete findings of Abslon.nu with outlook to other similar endeavors and tries to draw some more general, although tentative conclusions.
Demonstration: Demonstrations - 1 [Close-Up]
Keywords: data mining, mindmap, databases, linguistics, museums, archives
