1. New Platform to Support Digital Humanities in the Czech Republic
INDIHU
New Platform to Support Digital Humanities in the Czech Republic
Tomas Foltyn

2. 173 500 000 pages of the modern documents

3. 18 000 000 pages of old prints and manuscripts

5. Brief summary of the DH situation in Czech Republic
isolated projects
not so many DH researchers
the innovation of the basic professional pro-seminars (with some exceptions) faces the resistance to change the established ways of teaching
no accredited university study programs aimed to the area of DH or related fields
gaps in the ways, how to provide the expected data sets
other barriers…

6. Czech Republic and the activities in the DH
Roadmap of Large Infrastructures for Research, Experimental Development and Innovation of the Czech Republic for the years 2016–2022
Academy of Sciences Strategy „AV 21“
Czech Association for Digital Humanities
INDIHU – development of tools and infrastructure for digital humanities

8. project funding: NAKI II timeline: 2016 – 2020
project coordinator: Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences
head of the project: Ing. Martin Lhoták
7 partners:
National Library of the Czech Republic
6 institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences
technological partner: inQool, a. s.

9. main tasks:
to develop software solution for the virtual exhibition creation
to develop virtual knowledge base software solution
integration of the free OCR open-source mechanism to the INDIHU environment
to integrate so far isolated databases of the Academy of Sciences institutes to the one portal
workshops for the university students to enhance their knowledge about the DH research possibilities

10. INDIHU Exhibition
based on the principles of the content management system for creating web pages
the possibility to create an exhibition composed of several chapters
simple layout, where image materials are prefered
full multimedia version with spoken commentary or readable option
responsive design
rich documentation including video tutorials
no need to be the IT technical expert
solution should be suitable for the various collections

14. INDIHU Exhibition: online version: http://inqooltest.libj.cas.cz/
user guides:
technical information:
GIThub:

15. INDIHU OCR:
personal research digital archives transformation to the form enabling full-text searching
automated citation creation mechanism support
available freely via the web based interface
based on the TESSERACT OCR solution including API interface

17. INDIHU Mind: substitution of the personal research archives
automated every day working procedures integration:
RSS feeds
personal research procedures
trend tracking tool management system
team work support
data exchange
tracking lists
connection to the virtual conferences and most common cloud services
wiki services
….and many more

19. The goal is to integrate more than 20 databases:
Digital Archive and the evidence system of the archaeological research reports
Archaeological Map of the Czech Republic
ETNOfolk
Historical Photographs Database
Database of the folk songs and dances
Jan Patočka Digital Archive
VITREA Databases
Database of the Plans and Graphics of the Institute of Art History

20. Workshop organization:

21. CONCLUSION – DH, libraries and Czech Republic
Pluses:
experience with the routine operation of databases and portals
knowledge of the digital environment
quality of the metadata
knowledge of the development of the automated tools
proof in the organization of the various activities
skilled library professionals

22. CONCLUSION – DH, libraries and Czech Republic
Minuses
barriers associated with limited communication with the scientific community and the university students of the relevant scientific disciplines
limited feedback to the developer tools
outdated scientific practices at the university proseminars
small amount of the modern, methodological research papers
graduates are not able to cover the current staff needs of research and memory institutions in the field of digital curators, project administrators and digital humanities experts

23. CONCLUSION – DH, libraries and Czech Republic
Challanges towards to the light future…(? x !)
begin with the systematic revision of the way, how the humanities are taught at the universities
even closer connection between university technical and arts departments and of course culture heritage institutions
realization of the interesting research projects, which can promote DH not only to the professional public
secure the continuous financial support of the established technological tools and hardware infrastructure
find the funding for „early-stage“ researchers or Ph.D. students training programs at the culture heritage institutions and support new trends in humanities including DH labs creation

24. tomas.foltyn@nkp.cz https://cz.linkedin.com/in/foltyn-tomas-a3564226