Blog

Finnish Academy organized a seminar with the topic "Deep learning and the humanities" where the idea was to bring together researchers from the Digihum-program, as they progress along with their research targets.

As a keynote there was Professor Roger K Moore, whose slides can be found from the academy's event page .  He had a very lively presentation about the fast technology evolution with regard the speech recognition and he also talked about the difficulties, that can occur when a machine tries to understand a human, how many points of misunderstanding there can be. Some of his articles listed.  One way forward, which he mentioned would be iterative translation, where machine does translation as the talking progresses, instead of waiting to the end. This enables clarifying as e.g. translation progresses.

Also Comhis-program was presented by the work package leaders. Dr. Kimmo Kettunen told about the article extraction with the digitized newspapers, Mikko Tolonen about how new information can be revealed from the metrics, and Hannu Tolonen, how similar paragraphs or news items have, back in the day, flown freely from one newspaper to another for which there were potential tools to experiment on and to check how they work with this quite complex corpus of the newspapers and journals.

Also other Digihum-projects were presented and finally also the international 'Digging into data' challenge winners from Finland got also to present their topic. It seemed that there is lots more research questions to tackle, which the existing projects start, but which can be made even further within that umbrella.  The joint projects enable universities with different focus areas to collaborate and find new solutions, which creates new benefits on both sides. For example, quite concretely, project called Oceanic Exchanges (OcEx), where University of Turku is a member, illustrates the global connectedness by utilizing the digitized newspapers from different collections.

P.S. Do remember that the open data distribution packages from the digitized newspapers  are available via http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/opendata .

in relation to the Comhis-project we are pleased to announce a job opening at National Library of Finland.

Ὂ1 Finnish version of the application at University of Helsinki pages, free translation below.

The National Library of Finland is the oldest and largest scholarly library in Finland as well as the largest independent institute at the University of Helsinki. It is responsible for the collection, description, preservation and accessibility of Finland’s printed national heritage and the unique collections under its care. 

Centre for Preservation and Digitisation is in charge of the National Library of Finland's preservation, conservation and digitising operations and their development.  The division is responsible for making the digitised materials accessible and ensuring their suitability for long-term preservation while working in cooperation with the library network services. The division also promotes the field's Finnish and international cooperation and is in charge of our library's digitising and preservation policies.

Centre for Preservation and Digitisation in Mikkeli is seeking for a

Information Systems Specialist

for a duration of a project until 31.8.2018 , starting from 1.5.2017 or as agreed.

The Information Systems Specialist works with the software, material, user management, documentation and user interface development regarding material of digitized materials in presentation system (http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi) . The tasks include supporting the research team of digital materials and utilizing research results of the big data related results in the information systems of the division.

For the successful development of the tasks we hope for an applicable degree and strong work experience, especially with web development. We emphasize Java (Spring, Hibernate, AngularJS) or Perl/PHP-knowledge. Good learning skills with regards new technologies and applying own knowledge is seen as an advantage. Knowledge of digital materials production- or background systems (etc. Oracle) usage & development is also a benefit. Applicants are hoped to have creative problem solving skills, excellent collaboration and organization skills, independent working style and good skills in English.

Information Systems Specialist works in two projects.

• COMHIS-project Comhis , investigates the change of the public discourse in Europe and in Finland 1640 – 1910 and Finnish knowledge production as part of the European development. Project uses digitized newspapers as its sources. The quality of the digitized newspapers and usability will be improved, and the newspapers are researched e.g. with means of the text mining. The research team co-operates with University of Turku and other partners.
• HAKA-project develops to the http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service integration to the HAKA Identity Federation. Haka-integration will be piloted with universities and higher education during 2017-2018.

Apply within the University of Helsinki pages, where there is more information about the vacancy:

https://www.helsinki.fi/fi/avoimet-tyopaikat/tietojarjestelmaasiantuntija-kansalliskirjastoon

Last day to apply is 17.04.2017.

Comhis-projektissakin oleva Turun yliopiston akatemiaprofessori Hannu Salmi, oli työryhmineen menestyksekäs kansainvälisessä Digging into Data-challenge rahoitushaussa. Suomesta rahoitusta sai neljä hanketta, josta Hannu Salmen tutkijat saivat rahoitusta tiedonvälityksen historian tutkimiseen. Aineistossa käytetään digitoituja sanomalehtikokoelmia, sillä ne ovat aikansa kuvaa ja big dataa, josta on mahdollista löytää uudenlaista informaatiota.

Lue lisää Turun yliopiston tiedotteesta tai Suomen Akatemian tiedotteesta, jossa tietoa myös muista tutkimusryhmistä, joille tässä haussa rahoitusta myönnettiin.

Suomen Akatemian digitaaliset ihmistieteet, eli DIGIHUM-ohjelman avajaisseminaari on juuri käynnissä. Helsingin yliopiston, Turun yliopiston ja Kansalliskirjaston COMHIS-projekti on osa DIGIHUM-ohjelmaa, nimeltään Digitaalinen historiantutkimus ja julkisuuden muutos Suomessa 1640–1910.

Tavoitteena on yhdessä arvioida julkisen keskustelun luonnetta kehitystä ja siirtymiä vuosina 1640–1910. Tähän pyritään sekä kirjastometatietojen analyysin avulla, että itse digitaalisten sisältöjen tekstin louhinnalla. Odotamme kiintoisia löytöjä, kun pohdimme suomen kielen aseman nousua suhteessa ensimmäisiin ruotsinkielisiin sanomalehtiin, yliopistoissa syntyneeseen keskusteluun ja kirjahistoriaan. Jo nykyisellään Kansalliskirjaston nykyiset digitoidut sanomalehti- ja aikakauslehtiaineistot ovat laaja kokonaisuus, jolla COMHIS-hankkeessa päästään tekemään uraauurtavaa tutkimusta . Lähde ja lisätietoja hankekuvauksesta (pdf).