Disclaimer

This public prototype is generously funded by a November 2020 Seed Corn Grant from SOAS, University of London and by an Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship to the Lilly Library.

As a prototype, it is being used as a sample model and is released as a product in order to test a concept or process. The following parameters were used in the information architecture as well as its semantic structure:
 
The inventory is populated with item descriptions from Charles Boxer's  Catalogue of Philippine Manuscripts  in the Lilly Library (Asian Studies Research Institute, Occasional Papers. Bloomington Indiana, 1968).
 
The descriptions have been inputted by Graduate Assistants with no modification from the original Boxer papers except for the categorization of separate Folios as single items so the number of leaves and their provenance can be better indicated.
 
The sample photos that have been uploaded to accompany the item entries have been taken by Dr Cristina Martinez-Juan at the Lilly Library. These are preliminary photos of the materials, and are not digital scans of the manuscripts, and have been uploaded to serve as representative specimens of what will eventually be full resolution, zoomable scans in IIIF.
 
Some working conclusions that have been gathered from this working model, and a list of action plans for the improvement of the knowledge base.

a) Substitute low quality photos for IIIF ready  images - properly scanned and accessible  from a Universal Viewer. The scans need to be zoomable and indexed properly, as well as OCR ready if there is future capacity. 

b) Boxer's descriptions and categories for the catalogue are uneven in quality and sometimes inaccurate. There is a need for a more thorough analysis of the manuscripts and more granular annotations for each folio. 

c) It is very difficult to find individual folios, or particular place names or events under the present categorizations. There is a need to tag data better, create finding tools for specific data items. 

d) There is a need for consistent and in-depth metadata categories that can run across the various owning  institutions that will eventually populate the reconstruction. 

e) The transcription and translation tools are conceptual at this stage, but these need to be integrated into the architecture of the inventory for ease of use. 

f) There is a need for an inter-institutional/transnational method to serve up the images and metadata from owning institutions so each institution can generate rich content and/or mirror displays and exhibits that are generated from the served IIIF scans.

Research Team:  

Dr Cristina Martinez-Juan (Project Head) 

Research Assistants: 

Raphael Emmanuelle Valencia Kalaw
Chiara Jimenez Martinez
Jessica Manuel