SharedCanvas: A Collaborative Model for Medieval Manuscript Layout Dissemination

Abstract: In this paper we present a model based on the principles of Linked Data that can be used to describe the interrelationships of images, texts and other resources to facilitate the interoperability of repositories of medieval manuscripts or other culturally important handwritten documents. The model is designed from a set of requirements derived from the real world use cases of some of the largest digitized medieval content holders, and instantiations of the model are intended as the input to collection-independent page turning and scholarly presentation interfaces. A canvas painting paradigm, such as in PDF and SVG, was selected based on the lack of a one to one correlation between image and page, and to fulfill complex requirements such as when the full text of a page is known, but only fragments of the physical object remain. The model is implemented using technologies such as OAI-ORE Aggregations and OAC Annotations, as the fundamental building blocks of emerging Linked Digital Libraries. The model and implementation are evaluated through prototypes of both content providing and consuming applications. Although the system was designed from requirements drawn from the medieval manuscript domain, it is applicable to any layout-oriented presentation of images of text.