DH Talk
Join us for a DH Kitchen on Friday, September 11 at 3:00 p.m. in Reynolda 301. Monique O’Connell will discuss her experience designing and building the Rulers of Venice, an online searchable database of election registers of the Venetian Republic in the medieval period. By offering new ways of searching these election registers, the database allows us to gain a more complete picture of officeholding in medieval Venice and also significantly reduces wear-and-tear on the fragile election registers themselves. Beyond its specific contribution to the field of Venetian history, the project’s development over the course of the last 15 years offers an interesting case study in the challenges of ongoing DH projects, raising issues of maintenance and stewardship that we don’t usually consider. An associated book of interpretive essays — The Rulers of Venice, 1332-1524: Interpretations, Methods, Database — was among the first humanities e-books published by the American Council of Learned Societies, in 2009. A recent second release reflects upon the project five years out. Recently, Monique partnered with ZSR Library’s Geoff Groberg to migrate the database underlying the Rulers of Venice project to a more sustainable platform.
